How to Adjust Movement Synchronizer Parameters

Strix Movement Synchronizer is a component for synchronizing Actor movements. Using interpolation/extrapolation techniques, it tries to synchronize complex movements accurately and naturally. The component has a lot of adjustable parameters, so that you can best fit the component to the expected movement patterns.

You can follow the guidelines below when you need to adjust the parameters to your game object.

Start with the default values

Some engineers try to find exact settings of parameters before running Strix Movement Synchronizer attached to an actual Actor. It is usually not recommended. The default values of parameters are chosen to cover typical movement patterns of many Actors, and they will work just fine in most cases.

It is recommended to write the script to move the owner Actor first, and then to see how Strix Movement Synchronizer moves replicas. If the movement looks fine, you don’t need to adjust the parameters.

Don’t try to synchronize too frequently

Typical 3D games refresh tens of frames per second, e.g., 30 fps, 60 fps, or more. Your script may potentially update an Actor’s position or acceleration every time an Event Tick is executed.

It is usually too much, however, for most games to try to update replicas over network in the same rate. Strix Movement Synchronizer uses extrapolation technique to predict future positions of an Actor and reduces the required number of synchronizations. It even tries to optimize the synchronization period dynamically based on the movement patterns.

Sync Period Min and Sync Period Max control the movement synchronization frequency. They are period of time between synchronization, in milliseconds, so smaller values mean more frequent synchronization and larger values less frequent. Sync Period Min is the minimum time between synchronization, so it effectively defines a maximum frequency. Sync Period Max is the maximum time between synchronization, defining a minimum frequency. The default values are 100ms for Sync Period Min and 500ms for Sync Period Max, that in turn define at most 10 times and at least 2 times of synchronization per second.

You may think synchronizing movements in the frequency of 2-10 times per second is not enough for a game running in 60 fps, but usually it is.