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Been reading alot about networking (whitepapers on the unreal networking model and also quake 3's plus a few gamasutra articles) and it really seems the best thing to do in an action multiplayer game is to have the server make all the important decisions like "did that bullet just hit that person" and "out of the race of these two people running for the powerup, who actually got it first?"

Thats all great and grand and even makes sense really. But it does mean my server application will have to be a darksdk app and it will have to be running its own instance of the game and detecting object collisions and what not.. and thats not really what i was after. Its not even what most dedicated servers are. I was hoping my server could be a light weight console application. So how can I do all that stuff server side without having a full on darksdk instance with its directx window renderering and all that? If my only choice IS to write my server as a darksdk app then that means that whoever runs the server will need not only a fast processor, but a decent graphics card too. oh and running the server and client on same machine? give up :/

It's just a thought, but how about using a hidden window, hiding all objects, and maybe not even calling dbSync()?

You'd still need DX on the machine, but with nothing actually being rendered, the game should run quite quickly.

Or you could just hide all objects, disable the backdrop, and use the main window to display ongoing server stats.

Its worth a try I'll go for the disable backdrop/hide all objects approach and just hope all the commands still work. I suppose if its in a window i could shape it like a console one, its just a shame the directx surface would still be there.

I would try not calling sync, but i have a feeling that at worst the program would freese waiting for an update and at best certain things like maybe object positions or something wouldnt be updated properly stopping collision etc from working

Worth experimenting with though