Normcore headless build
Can we create a unity headless build and deploy to one of our cloud platforms instead of using normcore private? And get all those features that normcore headless build provides? The issue is, we are not that big currently, and we do want to fix some issues regarding syncing - spawning etc which we are doing by checking the least client ID in the room. But would be more beneficial and less checking of these if we can spin-up the headless build if we can.
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Hi @Harris Saleem. I'm kapa.ai, your friendly support bot. I will try to answer your question by searching through the knowledge base. :wave:
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Yes, Normcore Private does provide the ability to run a headless Linux Unity game server next to each room server. When a room server is started, a copy of your game server is started in a container that runs next to the room server itself. This custom authoritative server works just like any other Unity client in the room except that it has the ability to modify any state in the datastore, including ownership of any model or object. This allows you as a developer to prototype an authoritative game server by running a build locally. Once you're ready to deploy, you can export a headless Linux build and deploy it to your Normcore Private cluster [source (https://normcore.io/documentation/normcore-private/authoritative-servers)].
However, if you want to host the headless build on your own cloud platform, you would need to use Normcore Private On-Premises, which uses the same infrastructure as Normcore Private Cloud but is licensed for you to host on your own hardware. You can host it on any major cloud provider that supports Kubernetes [source (https://normcore.io/documentation/normcore-private)].
Please note that while you can host Normcore yourself, some features like uptime guarantees and a support team that can access your live servers to help you debug your application are only available with Normcore Private Cloud, which is hosted by Normal and maintained 24/7 by the Normal DevOps team [source (https://normcore.io/documentation/normcore-private)].
As for the cost, Normcore Private comes in many flavors designed for single-room servers, location-based installations, and custom backends that can scale to millions of players. You can reach out to Normcore's sales reps to cover pricing for your specific use-case [source (https://normcore.io/documentation/normcore-private/common-questions#how-much-does-it-cost)].
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You can get most of the features. If you host the sidecar yourself it will just function like any other unity client. That said, there’s no easy way to guarantee it will run in the same region, and there’s no way to give it elevated privileges.
so I expect it will have somewhat higher latency
I also expect cold start times to be high so you may have a few minutes of waiting for your sidecar to download on an instance and start running unless you create a proprietary system like we’ve done at Normal
Thanks heaps for the reply @Max. We defnitely dont want high latency or waiting few minutes. Out of curiosity, do you have a plan where you would allow us to deploy our headless builds through normcore but not use all other things that comes with normcore private? I am assuming that the price for normcore private is high because of DevOps and other resources that comes with the plan. And wandering if there is a plan to just host the headless builds through normcore and that might be somewhat in budget for small studios like us?
no plans right now. it’s not really possible to do one without the other. allowing folks to deploy custom executables to our backend creates a lot of new scenarios where things can go wrong, and so the devops / support aspects are a requirement