Godot video tutorials

Today we released the first two videos in a series of five dedicated to Godot Engine, created in association with Pivec Labs.

  • The second video shows how to setup and use the SmartFox client API object to establish a connection to the server and log in. It also shows a lobby application, which can be used as a template for multiplayer games. Find it here: SmartFoxServer Connector Tutorial for Godot

Stay tuned for the other videos in the next weeks.

SmartFoxServer Roadmap!

With the new year (2024) we have started working on a set of major new features and improvements that will come to SmartFoxServer in due time. Here is a short list of what’s cooking:

  • Support for Java 21: the latest LTS release introduces new language features, powerful API and a new Garbage Collector that can be beneficial for server apps such as SmartFoxServer.
  • Virtual Threads: is one of the main attractions in JDK 21 and a long awaited feature to improve scalability. We’re planning to redesign the threading model in SmartFoxServer to take full advantage of this feature, simplify the the configuration and offer better performance overall.
  • Reliable UDP: a new addition to the SmartFoxServer bag of supported protocols. Reliable UDP (RDP in short) is ideal for low latency, real-time communication and we plan to provide multiple QoS (quality of service) levels to support different use cases.
  • Analytics Update: we’re also planning to redesign some of features of our Analytics module to make it more flexible and well integrated.
  • New Javascript runtime: since Nashorn was dropped in JDK 15 we’re researching different solutions to keep the support for Javascript on the Server side.
  • Lots more in R&D stage: there are at least another 3-4 major features that are in the early stages of research and a long list of other improvements and tweaks that will interest the server core and API.

At the moment there is no set release date as we’re in the building and testing phase, but we’ll publish more info when it’s time and provide more details.

SmartFoxServer 2.20.0 is out!

We have just released SmartFoxServer 2X 2.20.0, which comes as a patch for all previous 2.19.x releases. The version updates the embedded Tomcat (websocket/BlueBox), providing several bug and security fixes.

This release also improves the communication speed with the License Server and adds a new setting for managing the the User’s packet queue when it is maxed out.

Please, make sure to read the full release notes included with the download itself.

Download SFS2X update 2.20.0

Small API Update for all client platforms

We have just released a small update for our client API, which addresses the caching of UserVariables when users enter and leave multiple Rooms. A recent bug submission has pointed to a specific situation in which a UserVariable would remain in the cache, potentially wasting some memory.

You can read more in the related support forum discussion and download the latest release from our API Download page.

Run SmartFoxServer 2X with JRE 16 and higher

As of 2023 SmartFoxServer 2X ships with the JRE 11 (LTS) out of the box, but it can also run with a higher version if needed.

In our documentation we have a detailed table with all the supported Java releases and their level of compatibility with SFS2X, which we recommend to consult.

At the time of writing this article SFS2X does not run with a JRE version 16 or higher without additional configuration. In this short article we will discuss how to configure the SmartFoxServer launchers to support the most recent Java runtimes, up to the latest JRE 20.

Continue reading →