The new AdminTool (beta) is available

With the progressive retirement of the Flash platform we started researching how to port our SmartFoxServer 2X Admin Tool to the HTML5 environment. This has led to a significant investment of time as many of the frameworks and tools available for Flash development did not have an equivalent in the browser world. Another major time sink was rethinking a significant portion of our workflow and finding good replacements for visual components that would render correctly on devices of all sizes.

With the launch of SmartFoxServer 2X 2.14 we’re happy to announce the beta phase of the new HTML 5 AdminTool, which will replace the existing Flash-based one during 2020. Continue reading →

SmartFoxServer 2X and macOS Catalina

With the recent release of macOS Catalina (10.15) Apple has removed the support for legacy 32-bit applications which in turn has made several software inaccessible on the new OS.

If you’re planning on using SmartFoxServer 2X under macOS Catalina there are a couple of things that you need to know to ensure smooth sailing.
Continue reading →

Understanding packet loss

Packet loss is a potential issue for multiplayer games and recognizing it earlier rather than later can be very helpful in making your game more enjoyable, especially for players with sub-optimal connections. In this article we’re going to explore the different types of packet loss, how to identify the issue and how to solve it when it appears. Continue reading →

Object serialization between static and dynamic languages

Among the advanced features provided in the SmartFoxServer SDK is the ability to exchange any class instance between client and server with minimal coding intervention. This is particularly useful for statically typed languages such as Java, C# and Actionscript, while dynamic languages such as Javascript are not directly supported.

In this article we’re going to discuss an alternative way to implement custom serialization for classes that are needed from both client and server side to implement our game logic.

If you’re not entirely familiar with the topic of class serialization in SFS2X we recommend reading this article from our documentation Continue reading →

15 years of SmartFoxServer: a look at the past and a hint of the future

Approximately 15 years ago, in 2004, we released our first commercial version of SmartFoxServer, called SmartFoxServer Basic.

It was the fruit of our previous experience with SmartFoxServer Lite, a free multiplayer server launched one year before on gotoandplay.it, one of the top Flash developer communities of the time.

Fifteen years might not seem much, but in technological terms it feels like ages ago, when things that we give for granted such as Youtube, Instagram or the iPhone didn’t even exist.

In this blog post we’re going to take a look back at evolution of SmartFoxServer since its early days and the many changes and incredible growth of multiplayer gaming in the past 10+ years.

Continue reading →