3rd party or stock?

As I'm getting more and more into multiplayer, I'm reading more and more about all the 3rd party servers and I'm really starting to wonder if I'm making the right choice... so ill ask this before I get more into it, lol.

What are the pros and cons to using unity's networking versus using a 3rd party server like photon?

The game that were developping is hard to describe in detail but in essence it is an FPS that focuses on teamwork and realism. We have it working well with unity's networking but I'm wondering if it will be a mistake later on...

 

It will be a mistake if you have tons and tons of players. Other than that, the bugs are work aroundable and its a pretty nice system.

 

The answer depends on the nature of your FPS game. If it's an MMFPS like planetsides they would be a perfect fit, especially Photon.

You cannot distribute the server side frameworks such as Photon, Electroserver or SmartFox to the client. If you want individuals to host their own servers, then well that's a huge con.

It's still possible to run an FPS from them, however you would be paying for all the bandwidth. and running it from your data center hosted machine(s).

 

Well were not looking at anything like an mmo, just standard fps games like cs... to name a game. Our game will be nothing like standard fps games however. We would like people to be able to host there own servers, so I guess that points us towards the stock networking engine, but I'm just curious, are there any other performance drawbacks? Cuz I noticed that Begone, and a few other big unity fps's are using photon, when it seems like they didn't need to... so I just wanna know all the pros and cons before I get to far into it.

 

A better bet might be Lidgren then, for that would give you access to having a Linux based server module that runs a hell of a lot faster without the Unity bloat.

As far as performance drawbacks, that's too vague of a question. Nobody knows the application protocols you will set up, your target hardware, your send rate or how much bandwidth is available if they start a server from their home computer.

 

If it's CS like, then default will work just fine. If you're wondering, the unity's networking is a modified raknet.

 

Ok, I did read a bit about Lichtenstein but I wasn't sure if I needed to use it or if unity would be fine. After hearing all of this though, it seems like that will be my best bet.

Thanks for clarifying guys, xD