Unity Multiplayer or Orleans or Mirror: Which Framework is the Finest for Your Upcoming Unity Game Project?

Whenever there’s a new gaming project at a desk, we always get the question, Which framework to choose? Well, it’s quite justified too. At Juego Studios, we believe in reducing all discrepancies, including dependability and networking.

Sometimes looking for new frameworks makes the entire development easy. It’s the reason why developers at Juego Studios are always on the lookout for new frameworks. If you’re starting a new Unity Game Project, you might find the information given below insightful.

We’ve included three frameworks, i.e. Unity Multiplayer, Mirror & Orleans. You can go through the information and choose the suitable one based on your requirements. Before moving forward, let’s understand what Unity is and what are these frameworks.

What is Unity?

You can think of Unity as a game engine for creating fantastic games. You can develop 2D games as well as 3D game development falling in different genres. With Unity, you can also create cross-platform games. It means you need to code once and can use it wherever you want.

What are frameworks?

The framework is a bunch of code that has some specific function to do. You can import or use a framework in your project to derive that function. Also, you can modify the framework with your codes to get customized functionality.

Which frameworks should you consider for your next Unity Project?

1. Unity Multiplayer:

This framework is not quite popular out there. So, there’s a possibility you wouldn’t have heard about this. Earlier, Unity offered a service known as UNet (now depreciated), which had two major components: –

• Core networking APIs.
• Enabling services.

Unity crafted UNet to help Unity developers develop P2P games easily. However, it had its own discrepancies, which is why it was depreciated.

• 1st discrepancy: DDoS Attack:

In P2P or peer-to-peer games, when one player is connected to others, you had to send multiple copies of the data to that player. You also had to depend on the strength of a random person’s network.

Now someone who knows how to perform a DDoS attack can tweak another person’s network. And this way, he could take advantage.

• 2nd discrepancy: Client as host:

After that, some P2P games used one of their clients as their server. In this part, there was no need to send the data to multiple clients. However, it still depended on the client, who was the host, client, and server.

 The host, client, or server could see the data before anyone else. And this gave him an unfair advantage.

However, now Unity is working on two frameworks that focus on DGS. DGS means a dedicated Game Server. Now in a dedicated game server, every player can connect separately. Also, it allowed adding much more players than a P2P interface.

One can also prevent cheating, as in a DGS, you can not perform a DDoS attack. Keeping these benefits in mind, Unity is working on: –

• Unity Transport Package: It’s a lower-level networking stack.
• DOTS-Netcode: a high-level network coding package.

The above frameworks are really useful and handy but are certainly new. So, you need to be familiar with them before you can reap the full benefit.

Pros of Using Unity Multiplayer:

• It offers a more comprehensive multiplayer game development experience.
• It has no discrepancy that UNet used to have.

Cons of using Unity Multiplayer:

• Not too famous, so you need to first read the API documentation.
• As there are not too many developers working on it, the support is limited.

2. Orleans:

Let’s talk about our next framework. Orleans is open source and offers a straightforward approach for crafting high-level computer apps. It’s a trustworthy framework developed by Microsoft. Also, around 343 industries used Orleans for Halo 5 and Halo 4 cloud services.

Orleans is based on a virtual actor model. It takes care or encapsulates all the complex concurrency with this model. You, as a developer, will find it quite easy to work with this framework. You’ll have to code on one machine, and the Orleans runtime system will ensure that it reaches all the servers.

Pros of Using Orleans:

• It’s easy to use.
• It hides the complexities from the developer.
• It offers Location Transparency, which makes it easier to manage everything.
• With Orleans, you can sync different servers into one.

Cons of Using Orleans:

• Security problems: Hackers could enter the servers and modify the player data.

 3. Mirror:

You can think of Mirror as a replacement for UNet. It’s an open-source framework that has a small codebase. The codebase follows the KISS principle. KISS or Keep-It-Simple-Stupid principle allows easy debugging and allows easy addition of functionalities.

Both the client and server can be in the same project with Mirror. The server and the client both can share the code and have a similar understanding. It’s a great framework that was built on the TCP library. Mirror provides lots of tweaks. You can change network protocol through APIs if you want.

There are numerous high-level APIS available. It means creating a multiplayer game with Mirror is easy-peasy.

Pros of Using Mirror:

• It offers high-level APIs that make game development easy.
• It works on the KISS principle, which is quite easy to understand.
• The framework handles numerous tasks like syncing variables, spawning Game Objects on its own.

Cons of Using Mirror:

• The documentation is somewhat incomplete.
• There’s no chat support.

The Final Question: Which one to choose?

Each one of the above frameworks has some disadvantages. The Unity Multiplayer is not fully into the picture. Mirror offers no chat support while Orleans comes with security issues. However, if you use Mirror for communicating with the server and Orleans to sync the data, you can definitely create a great Unity Multiplayer game.

Contact Juego Studios:

However, if you want someone to create a Unity game for you, connect with Juego Studios. At Juego Studios, developers make use of nothing but the best frameworks. It’s good both for the developers and for the gamers. Our company has been in Unity Game development for over a decade. So, you can rely on us.

Takeaway:

Juego Studios have created popular games like Super Club Soccer, Pro Feel Golf and Pool Game. Check out our portfolio. Also, contact Juego Studios now if you want us to create a Unity game for you.