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[PS3Scene]

Behind The Curtain: The Warhawk Servers Posted by XanTium | 8-8-2007 18:38 EST

From PlayStation Blog: Those of you familiar with Warhawk already know that the game features a very unique server method that we call "Integrated Game Server" or IGS for short -- the industry needs more acronyms don't you think :-) The Warhawk IGS method means that instead of us forcing players to be connected to the SONY "mothership" for any and all games, we instead let players host their own servers on their own PS3s. This is fairly unique and it enables a couple of really nice benefits. First, since Warhawk is a global online game, our IGS method scatters game servers quite literally into player's homes all over the planet -- the US, China, Europe, Australia, and Japan! No matter where you live, what time you want to play, or what language you speak, you'll always be able to get your game on. Secondly, this helps with latency. If you haven't heard, Warhawk is a fast game, a very fast game, so we wanted to ensure you had the best chance of finding servers with good ping times. We also wanted to make sure people could host *and* play on their own servers. After all, why should you have to connect to a server a gazillion hops away when you know that there are Warhawk servers running in your state or city? Possibly on your same ISP? Maybe even friends in your neighborhood or buddies in your dorm? Hence our desire to develop an IGS system for Warhawk. All that said, we still want to make sure that there are always an abundance of wicked-fast Ranked Dedicated servers available for players. The images that accompany this post were taken by our very talented IT team here at SCEA. And yes, what you're looking at is an enormous server cluster for Warhawk...of rack-mounted PS3s! (IMG:http://media.ps3scene.com/images/warhawk/997953862_f602966618.jpg) Full Story: PlayStation Blog

[stevenalvarado]

Isnt that more expensive to have all those ps3s working that way than the normal way?

[tgm4883]

How is this unique?  The Xbox 360 does it?  And how is it a benefit?  Now you have host advantage.  Just look at gears of war.

[Ninja Sniper X]

Lol now we know how Sony got all of last months sales figures.  

[Thraxen]

QUOTE(tgm4883 @ Aug 8 2007, 09:52 PM)

How is this unique?  The Xbox 360 does it?  And how is it a benefit?  Now you have host advantage.  Just look at gears of war.

I don't really know how it's unique, but those banks of PS3s look cool.  Anyway, GoW has "flaws" in its network code.  There will always be a host advantage, but it is worse in GoW than in most games.

But you should also note that those severs above are running dedicated Sony ranker match servers.  So if you don't want worry about the host advantage then you can just opt to play on official servers only.  

Also, Warhawk can be set-up to run dedicated at home.... meaning the host is not playing and simply letting his PS3 run as a host.  I was in the beta and people did this quite often.  When browsing the server list there is an icon that tells you if the game is a dedicated server or if the host is playing.  And for what it's worth, I never noticed any major host advantage when playing Warhawk.  It was never in issue from what I experienced.

What's cool is a home user can run a ranked server too, but there are restrictions.  When running a ranked server the host can't play, it has to be a dedicated server.  There can't be any passwords and people can't play split-screen (one of the best features of Warhawk, BTW).

This post has been edited by Thraxen: Aug 9 2007, 06:48 AM

[zequal]

man... those racked ps3's are crazy!  

[SBEEZY]

dude im no sony fan but i would love to have one rack of those in my room

[samy25]

It's unique alright, the xbox isn't nearly the console that the ps3 is. Processor wise! WoW!!!!!!