In this article we are going to explore several ways to use the open source HAProxy load balancer in conjunction with SFS2X, to increase the scalability and availability of a multiplayer project.

We are going to show different configurations for TCP and Websocket connections and several ways to setup the system for common use cases.

To get the most out of this tutorial we require a basic knowledge of what a Load Balancer is and how it works, and some familiarity with the basics of networking and the OSI Model.

We have added a new article to our SFS2X documentation website for developers who need to run SFS2X with a different Java Runtime version.

We provide a short list of JRE/JDK vendors that we have tested over the course of many years and a detailed table of compatibility with the more recent Java Runtimes, up to version 16.

You can read the JRE Compatibility article here.

We have just released cumulative patch 2.17.3 for SmartFoxServer 2X, addressing an issue with the Flood Filter and another with MMORooms.

For more details on all recent changes and updates check our release notes here.

Download the update.

When running SmartFoxServer on machines with large amounts of RAM (e.g. 32/64GB or more) developers often have questions about strategies to make use of all resources, and how to optimize garbage collection.

At first these questions can seem intimidating, considering the vast amount of custom settings available for the Java Runtime and the multiple garbage collection options, each with its own set of configuration choices.

The good news is that navigating the complexity of the JVM is easier and less intimidating than expected (at least for SFS2X devs) and with this article we hope to simplify most SmartFoxServer users’ life.

We have gone through a full review to the SmartFoxServer documentation: now all code snippets are written in C# and JavaScript, other than the previous ActionScript 3.