If you feel so inclined, I'd appreciate a coffee to keep me caffeinated if you use this transport.
Welcome to Ignorance, a plug-in Transport system for Mirror Networking that allows you to harness reliable UDP communications over the vast seas that is the internet. Harnessing the ENET Backend, it provides reliable and unreliable UDP packet delivery with up to 255 individual channels and 4096 theortical maximum clients connected at any time.
Let's face the music: Unity's Low-level API networking sucks. Ignorance aims to do what LLAPI did... and a little bit more.
Please read the FAQ (towards the bottom of this wall of text) before using the Ignorance Transport.
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Windows 7 x64 onwards, however...
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32bit Windows ENET Blobs are included, however they should be treated as experimental. I am doing this because I get quite a lot of people in countries where 32bit computers are more common than 64bit computers (Russia, Brazil, etc).
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If you have found a quirk in the 32bit blobs, you will be required to build a 64bit version of your game and test to see if the quirk exists. If it does, then you qualify for a bug report.
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If the quirk exists in 32bit blobs but does not exist in 64bit blobs, then you can file a bug report but it’ll be lower priority.
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macOS 10.12 onwards. El Captain and below ARE NOT supported.
- Tested and confirmed working on High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina.
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Linux
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x86_64 libraries are included, compiled on a Ubuntu 18.04 LTS instance (Bionic Beaver).
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Should just work on various Linux distros, as long as they aren’t too exotic. Main testing has been done on Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/CentOS.
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If your distro uses a different C library instead of GNU C then you’ll need to recompile the blobs manually. See the ENet-CSharp repository for more information.
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Nintendo Switch: Manual compile required - see this document from the ENet-CSharp repository.
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Xbox One
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UWP: Tested and confirmed working for LAN Client only. LAN Host doesn't work.
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Native: Possibly, however I don’t have development kit or license to test.
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PlayStation
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Vita: Possibly. Would require me having access to the Vita SDK and C compiler.
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PS4: Falls into the same boat as Vita (above)
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Both systems will probably require some patches in ENET to commodate the OS differences that Vita/PS4 have (as they are *BSD based).
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Android 4.4 "KitKat" onwards.
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ARMv7, ARM64 and x86 blobs are included.
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x86_64 Blobs are not included since Unity 2018.4 LTS does not support that platform yet.
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Apple iOS
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System version 8.0 minimum
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Supports iPhone 4S to the latest iPhone. Tested and working on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5s, iPad 2 WiFi + 3G and iPad (5th Gen)
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Compiled as a FAT library.
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ENet-CSharp (custom fork, NOT compatible with upstream)
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ENET Native C Library Blobs (included)
Please use the Mirror Asset Store releases. The master branch of Mirror can also be used but please beware that it's bleeding edge and massive breakage can be expected on a bad day.
Download the Unity Package from Releases that is the latest one. Simply import the Unity Package and Unity will do the rest. Follow the instructions below.
As of Ignorance 1.3, I have included a pre-configured sample scene so you can get started easily.
Hard mode:
- If you haven't already, make a empty GameObject with the Mirror Network Manager.
- It will automatically add Telepathy as the default transport.
- Add a new component and look for Ignorance Classic or Ignorance Threaded.
- You will have Ignorance added as a transport, but it will not be activated.
- Remove the Telepathy transport.
- Now drag the Ignorance (Classic/Threaded) component into the Transport field of the Network Manager inspector.
- If all goes well, you should see
**Game Object Name (Ignorance Classic/Threaded)in that field.
Unity LLAPI is old, obsolete and no longer mantained by Unity Technologies. It is currently on heavy life-support until they get their act together with the new Unity Multiplay system. Plus, it was held together by bandaids and bubble-gum. Depending on what you threw over the network, you'd get random latency spikes and packets would go missing even in Reliable delivery mode.
Ignorance aims to replace it with a stable and high performance transport system that allows you to forget about low-level networking stress and spend more time focusing on the gameplay.
As of the latest version of Ignorance, there are two versions included in releases and this repository. They are as follows:
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Classic: This one pumps the ENET Backend every LateUpdate tick, and if any events come in, they will be fired all in that tick. This is the "tried and true" transport pumping method.
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Threaded: This one pumps the ENET Backend with a configurable timeout and uses seperate server and client incoming and outgoing queues. Network Events get placed into their respective queues and are pumped until the server or client is disconnected respectively. During every LateUpdate tick, the incoming queues are drained, ready for more network activity. This allows maximum performance, at the expense of some stability as Unity threading can be very tempermental at times.
If performance is essential for you, use the Ignorance Threaded version of Ignorance. This will give you maximum networking performance. If stability is essential, use the Ignorance Classic version of Ignorance.
Since Mirror and all transports use LateUpdate to process their network code, there might be a chance that at very low framerate (ie. you are really stressing the server or creating lots of GameObjects in which Unity has to load from disk) that the networking gets overwhelmed, regardless of classic or threaded versions of Ignorance. It is essential to keep your server's frame rate running as high as possible as this will reduce latency and in-game lag. You will be able to tell when the server is under heavy stress when networked objects get very choppy and/or the client starts hanging.
Until Mirror changes how they manage their transport code, we are stuck with having to deal with this design issue.
Check the current open bug reports and/or report a new one here. I strongly also recommend you be present in the Mirror Discord so I can ask for further info and/or you can test fixes for your bug reports. Trolls are not welcome.
Bugs that do not have enough details will be closed with #wontfix. Details like your OS, Unity Editor version, any Ignorance errors, etc is essential for a good bug report.
It might be slightly out of date, but it covers the basics of Ignorance.
Please let me know why as I can't improve my code if I don't get feedback. However, if you're just here to troll me and my code, then please move on.
See also: LiteNetLib4Mirror.
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Coffee Donators: Thank you so much.
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Katori: Helped kickstart the threaded version that evolved into Ignorance 2.
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BigBoxVR: Pull requests and found a race condition that threatened stability.
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c6burns: Words cannot describe how much help he's been. Bloody oath mate.
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Petris: Code refactoring and tidy up (you rock man!)
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The folks at the Mirror discord: Memes, Courage, laughs, drama and all-round awesome folks to chat with.
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To all the others who I have missed. Thanks a lot, you know who you are.
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You too can have your name here if you send in a PR. Don't delay, get your PR in today!
- FSE_Vincenzo: Providing insight into proper usage of ENET, rebuttal, improvements, etc.
- shiena: Pull requests for bug fixes and oversights.
- Draknith: Testing and mapping Reliable/Unreliable channels in Mirror to ENET Channels, testing.
- nxrighthere: Helped debug some things in early versions of Ignorance, before blacklisting everyone on the Mirror team from his repos. His funeral.