Hello all, I just have a few questions, I know that the standard instance limit is 40 which is actually not the actual limit. As you can join off of friends up to 80 to reach the real limit.
I am wondering if the “hosts” are actually on local networks, or is the instance actually hosted on VRC servers? As in if I start an instance, is my local network actually hosting the instance, or am I creating an instance on VRC servers, and they become the server host? I have seen user systems called VRCDN that are utilized for large parties, and heavy loads, which may imply a local host; if not, what are these user systems created for?
Has anyone seen any news relating to bringing up the hard cap to potentially an even 100? With VRC supporting clubs, I assumed this would be a great asset to those groups; stability of performance will improve over time, as hardware gets upgraded.(VR Chat from what I understand is actually way more CPU intensive than it is GPU intensive, overtime hardware will get better, and PC’s will be able to support larger communities, it will simply be up to the instance hosts to determine if they can handle hosting that many users.)
Is VRC currently limiting instance caps due to alleged hardware issues? A lot of users on PCVR, are all avid PC users, who already have expensive rigs. These are the users who keep up with the latest and greatest hardware. Who monitor their frames in game, and have monitoring software running on their secondary screens. With this kind of community, I think it would be beneficial to allow experimentation to “trusted users”, as VRC has the userbase that is actually tech savy, allowing them to create instances with their own caps, would allow more experimentation, server stress data, and self regulation. These communities already regulate themselves, are VRC Devs opposed to allowing this sort of thing in order to maintain user friendliness?
VRChat uses Photon networking. Photon is not a dedicated server that is hosting the instance, it’s close enough to call it a relay server. This means that all traffic you send to other users has to be relayed through Photon servers. VRChat syncing works primarily by a concept of ownership. When a player picks up an object, they take ownership and then they tell everyone where that object is supposed to be (relayed through the photon servers). The “Host” (though in VRChat it’s called Master) is simply the default owner of all the objects, but as soon as someone takes it from them they lose that. If the owner of an object leaves, it goes back to the master. The master is always the person who has been in the instance the longest, and when one master leaves another will be picked.
VRCDN has nothing to do with VRChat networking. It’s sole purpose is to broadcast livestreams. It does so through the regular internet, outside of VRChat. It is effectively a private twitch stream.
The 80 player limit is based on the current performance of VRChat and the limits of CPUs. It’s not something that can just be bumped up whenever people want it (obviously people want it), it would need a very good reason.
80 player instances can bring even the latest and greatest hardware to it’s knees. People have been reporting huge gains from 12-series CPUs which is good news, but ultimately that only brings a “bad” situation up to an “acceptable” situation. If the limit is raised it would just drop the people with 12-series back down to “bad” and everybody with less than that down to “unacceptable”.
The fact is that when you’re talking about big events, it’s not easy to self-regulate because people are constantly trying to join. If one person joins and says “aw dang fps is too low, I should leave so everybody else can have a good experience”, then somebody else will immediately fill their spot and not be as considerate. Now you have an instance filled with a bunch of inconsiderate people not willing to leave
Fascinating insights, i’ve never heard of Photon networking, i’ll do some research on it, but it certainly sounds interesting.
The 80 player limit is based on the current performance of VRChat and the limits of CPUs.
This is actually what I figured, but it never hurts to ask anyway; and I thank you for your response! I knew VR Chat was a CPU intensive game, this likely means that in the future of course as CPU’s improve there is hope for higher instance caps, but as you stated:
It’s not something that can just be bumped up whenever people want it (obviously people want it), it would need a very good reason.
&
12-series CPUs which is good news, but ultimately that only brings a “bad” situation up to an “acceptable” situation.
Thanks again for the response, much appreciated. Hopefully this may help other people who may of had the same questions. I still really enjoy VRChat, and it’s my preferred VR Social platform because of how community supportive your company is. (Not to mention the freedom you provide to community developers.)
In the three years since the last post, the limit is still 80, but for Nye last year there were apparently some 200 player instances. Well there was but I didn’t know so I didn’t bother joining.
Also worlds can control the posted player limit and the actual. It used to be specify 40 and actual limit is 80. These days if a world wants to have 4 and only 4 people in it, that’s possible