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PolkaDOTS

PolkaDOTS is a framework for dynamic, differentiated deployment in online games. It is built on and extends the Unity Data Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) as well as the Unity Netcode For Entities (NFE) package. At the moment, PolkaDOTS only supports Unity 2022 LTS.

Features

  • Render Streaming enables client builds to act as cloud gaming hosts to stream the game.

  • Multiplay lets a single client act act as a render streaming host to more than one guest client, while also running a local player.

  • Dynamic Deployment allows remote configuration and reconfiguration of game instances at runtime, orchestrated by the DeploymentSystem

  • Player Emulation through input playback for automated testing and benchmarking. More advanced emulation can be implemented through adding a player simulation system.

  • Performance monitoring leverages the Unity Profiler features to monitor performance of game instances in realtime, and write them to analyzable logs.

Installation

Clone this repository into your Unity 2022 project as <ProjectRoot>/Packages/PolkaDOTS and open your project. The Unity Package Manager should automatically install dependency packages.

Usage

PolkaDOTS overrides the default functionality of DOTS and NFE systems through the custom bootstrap in GameBootstrap.cs. To enable this, under Project Settings -> Player -> Other Settings -> Scriping Define Symbols add UNITY_DISABLE_AUTOMATIC_SYSTEM_BOOTSTRAP and NETCODE_DEBUG, then add the /Prefabs/Bootstrap/GameBootstrap prefab to your base scene.

Player Frontend

The Render Streaming, Multiplay and Player Emulation functionalities require the use of a specific camera rendering and input collection setup. This setup can be added to a scene drag-and-drop by adding the Prefabs/Player/PolkaDOTS_Frontend prefab.

Player Object and Entity Linkage

The PolkaDOTS framework provides two player GameObject prefabs, Prefabs/Player/MultiplayPlayer and Prefabs/Player/MultiplayGuest, which are instantiated by Multiplay.cs on clients for local and remote (guest) players. However, the PolkaDOTS framework does not automatically link these instantiated GameObjects to any Player entities. Therefore, it is necessary to create a system to link the player GameObjects to your projects Player entities, to correctly gather input and assign it to the correct entity, and to move the GameObject according to the Player entity movement.

Configuration

PolkaDOTS adds a set of command line arguments in ApplicationConfig.cs. These arguments are read by the ConfigParser.cs. You can add additional command line arguments by creating a new static class with the ArgumentClass attribute added, and adding to this class argument fields of the types in ConfigParser.cs.

To use command line arguments in-editor, modify the Editor Args field on the Editor Cmd Args script, attached to the GameBootstrap prefab.

Performance Monitoring

To enable PolkaDOTS performance monitoring, add the Prefabs/Statistics/Statistics prefab to the base scene of your project. This prefab contains the Runtime Profiler Manager and the Statistics Writer.

The Runtime Profiler Manager manages the Unity Profiler's built-in capacity to write performance metrics to .raw files by setting a new file in intervals of frames, as the Profiler can only only up to 2000 frames in memory at a time. It is recommended to use the Statistics Writer instead, as relying on the .raw files entails having to either view them individually in the Unity Profiler Window, or attempt to convert them to .csv for other forms of visualization. It also does not support user-added custom profiler counters.

The Statistics Writer Instance collects performance metrics when running the game, and writes them directly to a single persistent .csv file. This is useful for conducting benchmarking of multiple game instances. To collect additional metrics, create a new profiler counter and add it to the writer instance using AddStatisticRecorder(). It is then necessary to create a system to record data into the new counter.

Adding a new profiler counter and module example 
 public class GameStatistics
{
    public static readonly ProfilerCategory GameStatisticsCategory = ProfilerCategory.Scripts;
    
    public const string NumPlayersName = "Number of Players";
    
    public static readonly ProfilerCounterValue<int> NumPlayers =
        new ProfilerCounterValue<int>(GameStatisticsCategory, NumPlayersName, ProfilerMarkerDataUnit.Count);
}

[ProfilerModuleMetadata("Game Statistics")] 
public class GameProfilerModule : ProfilerModule
{
    static readonly ProfilerCounterDescriptor[] k_Counters = new ProfilerCounterDescriptor[]
    {
        new ProfilerCounterDescriptor(GameStatistics.NumPlayersName, GameStatistics.GameStatisticsCategory),
    };
    public GameProfilerModule() : base(k_Counters) { }
}

Entity Subscenes

PolkaDOTS modifies ECS entity world management, and removes the assumption that entity worlds will be run immediately when created. It is thus necessary to modify ECS subscene loading so they are loaded when needed. Therefore, to load a subscene, create a new subscene that contains only the SceneLoader.cs script, and in its Scene field set your original subscene. The SceneLoader.cs will either automatically load your subscene when the world is loaded, or be loaded by the DeploymentWorld when using RemoteConfig.

If your game has logic that depends on these subscenes being loaded before running, an easy way to check is to add the WorldReadyAuthoring script to your subscene. This will add an entity with the WorldReady component to the world when the subscene is loaded.