Photon References Developer Contact Shop Blog

January, 2011

27
Jan 11

The new v2.4.4 SDK is a bugfix release. Since last Friday we fixed a few problems that slipped through testing: The Dashboard will now start again and the MMO Application got a minor fix as well.

Aside from the bug fixes, we added a new feature to the PhotonControl tool. Under “PerfMon Counters” you will now find controls to log PerfMon counters to files. You can install a “control set” (also visible in PerfMon, when installed) and start/stop it. This makes it easier to track performance and issues on any machine.

Get the SDK on our Download Page.

25
Jan 11

This release fixes a crash bug, which appeared on the iPhone under certain circumstances. This crash bug was introduced in the last release v6.4.0, released 21.01.2011.

Additionally, the ObjC API contains a UTF32 extension to Apple’s NSString class, offering an easy to use way for conversions between wchar_t* and NSString*.

Please have a look at the section “how to setup your application” in the documentation if you are using our objective C API.  You now have to use -force_load in “project settings” -> “other linker flags” on Common-objc library, to run a Photon objC client without runtime linkage errors  in Xcode 3.x. You can ignore this, if you are already using Xcode 4.0, which comes with a fix for this issue.

Get the new SDK on our download page.

21
Jan 11

The new Photon Server SDK v2.4.0 is now available on our download page. It includes several fixes, improvements and now also features the NetSync Demo.

We renamed the PhotonSocketServer.xml to PhotonSocketServer.config, which should make it more transparent when we refer to it as “Photon config”. In it, we set shadow copy and auto restart as default for most applications in the package. You can update your assembly configs or application builds at runtime and Photon will restart the (modified) app after 10 seconds. Only after the restart, new connects will hit the new app logic.
The Policy App won’t change much, so it’s not checking file changes. You should make sure to merge your application settings into the new config file.

We prepared a new license generation, which will provide everyone with a free 100ccu license. This is not yet online but almost done, so it should go live in a few days. Check the blog for updates. In the SDKs, we have a 100 CCU Trial license. We think it’s better if the Unlimited-CCU Trial does not start by unzipping and testing the server and you can replace the 100 CCU license soon. The trial for the Unlimited CCU will become a personal download as well and you can start using it when you are ready for load tests.

The Photon Control tray app now includes a menu entry for a local test client. It’s just a small load application that runs in a command shell but OK to see if Photon is working.

The NetSync Demo was updated and became a part of the Server SDK. Including the Unity Demo Client! This seems easier than having a separate download. On the down-side, it’s another client in a Server SDK. Let us know what you think, if you like.

Get the downloads on our webpage.

21
Jan 11

The new version of the C / C++ / objC SDKs is now available.

The clients for win32 and iPhone now have support for unicode strings (which were already supported by the server and the .NET clients). We also fixed a critical memory leak.

The range of other improvements on these clients is listed in the release_history.txt files in the sdks.

21
Jan 11

We just uploaded new Client SDKs for Unity3d and DotNet. Silverlight is still pending an update.

We’ve got several changes in this release but most noteworthy might be the support for encryption. After exchanging keys with the Server and deriving the shared key, Operations and responses can be exchanged encrypted. It’s compatible to all platforms of Unity, including iOS. Events are never encrypted, as they are usually sent to all clients anyways. You can now create a secured login or auth Operation and disconnect everyone who doesn’t send the correct values.

We will probably post some encryption details (algorithm, etc) in the DevNet soon. In the mean time, you can check out the modified Realtime Demos.

We also updated the Demo to Unity v3.1 now. If you just change the Server Address in Game.cs, the Realtime Demo should work on iOS immediately.

Please check the included release history files for more details.