Re:How to Animate Multiplayer Cursors
by cousin_it on Tuesday July 05, 2022 @11:51AM
(#31989735)
Yeah, wanted to say the same thing. If latency is the only problem, just batch up the updates and replay on the other end. If bandwidth also becomes a problem, only then start compressing the data. But to be honest, if we can stream video over the internet, we surely have enough bandwidth to stream cursor positions.
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Re:How to Animate Multiplayer Cursors
by stevenfabre on Tuesday July 05, 2022 @12:10PM
(#31990037)
Good point, it's also important to consider this in the context of the application that will use those multiplayer cursors. It's important that the state of the document matches the cursors, so it makes sense to have both presence (cursors, selection) and storage (document data) be perfectly in sync even if that means having a slight 80-200ms delay.
Could also have a positive impact on battery life as it would let the WiFi/cellular radio sleep longer.
I think this is one of those situations where “just because we can doesn’t mean we should” applies.
The marginal benefit of exact cursor positions is so low that sending all that data still feels like a waste.