> Frankly, for the absolute highest performance (and lowest bandwidth) game networking you still need a custom encoding
This is really the truth here. The efficiency of a networking protocol for a multiplayer game is somewhat sensitive to the context; Are you trying to do a fast-paced game with lots of client prediction? Do you need to have guaranteed delivery? Do you expect your game to be used with highly-lossy networks, or mostly from stable connections?
It's not uncommon to find something like flatbuffers or flexbuffers available in a multiplayer game engine, but the high-performance systems like movement or ai will probably utilize a custom protocol better suited to their task.
This is really the truth here. The efficiency of a networking protocol for a multiplayer game is somewhat sensitive to the context; Are you trying to do a fast-paced game with lots of client prediction? Do you need to have guaranteed delivery? Do you expect your game to be used with highly-lossy networks, or mostly from stable connections?
It's not uncommon to find something like flatbuffers or flexbuffers available in a multiplayer game engine, but the high-performance systems like movement or ai will probably utilize a custom protocol better suited to their task.