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On Roblox, a server refers to the server in the client–server model. Servers are run through the Roblox's engine, in which the place is replicated to a user's client that is connected. Roblox provides users a client to be able to connect to a Roblox server downloaded through the website. Roblox supports online multiplayer capability by allowing more than one client to connect to a server. Servers are hosted by Roblox on the platform which is available for any user that visits a place on the Roblox platform.

Client[]

Roblox provides users a client ("Roblox Player") which can be downloaded through the website. The client is a piece of software used to run Roblox's game engine and allows connecting to a Roblox server when visiting a Roblox place. The client also checks for updates every time it is run.

Networking[]

Roblox engine's networking is based on the client–server model. In run time, a place is loaded and handled by a server, many services of which are replicated to clients automatically including Workspace light iconWorkspace dark iconWorkspace and ReplicatedStorage light iconReplicatedStorage dark iconReplicatedStorage. Run time changes done by the server are also replicated.

A client connected to the server is represented as a Player light iconPlayer dark iconPlayer. Properties (such as UserId) that load data from the user on Roblox as well as methods that retrieve data from the user is available through the class object. Players are parented to the Players light iconPlayers dark iconPlayers service.

Roblox API allows access to functions related to replication: Server-sided code may access NetworkReplicators parented to the NetworkServer service. A NetworkReplicator is created for each Player which can be accessed through the GetPlayer method. Client-sided code may access the object ClientReplicator parented to the NetworkClient.

Places[]

Any Roblox place can be run by a Roblox server by visiting it.

When a user visits a Roblox place, the client will request for a Roblox server. If there are no servers for the place, all of the servers for the place are full, or Roblox decides to allocate a new server according to the place's Server Fill setting, a server is created, which loads the place's contents from the latest version. Otherwise, the client will connect to the server chosen by Roblox.

Technical[]

To host servers for places, Roblox uses their own in-house servers. These initially ran Windows Server. Roblox had been planning to switch their servers to Ubuntu since 2018, and in early 2020, Roblox implemented these plans, as per a presentation[1] from Rob Cameron, a senior technical director of Roblox.[2]

Roblox may automatically shut down some servers that have been active for multiple hours with error code 17, possibly due to lag concerns.

For website hosting, they use Amazon Web Services.

Server size[]

A place has a setting ("Maximum Visitor Count") that allows the place's creator to set the maximum of how many visitors there are in a server.

Previously, a Roblox server could only handle 50 visitors, originally possible through MEGA places.

In 2018, some users started to get a maximum visitor count of 100. To obtain this, users had to be on a beta list and have Builders Club. Only well-known developers were known to be on this list, but some users could receive access to them by simply contacting Roblox support. At the time, most servers would lag with visitor counts above 75, but improvements and optimizations were quickly being made.

On June 18th, 2018, a roadmap was published to the Roblox Developer Wiki to showcase what the Roblox team had been planning to develop. 100-visitor servers were mentioned and were targeted for release during the 2nd quarter of the roadmap, which was from May-June 2019.

On April 4, 2019, Roblox allowed the visitor count for all places to be 100. Beta users were able to set this as high as 200.

In 2020, Roblox introduced a maximum server size of 700 to those users, which remains the highest possible server size attainable by non-administrators.

Trivia[]

This section is a trivia section. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections of the article.

  • Users would often attempt to join a server using the server list to meet a famous or popular user. However, when the ability to see the username of someone in the server via a tooltip was removed in late 2017, this feature was restricted to being able to judge their username by their avatar. In mid-2022, the server list was updated to a more compact form, in which it is impossible to view all visitors to it.
  • When attempting to join a server with 0 visitors, one might have to stay on the loading screen for a prolonged period of time, while Roblox tries and fails to find an available server.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Ubuntu [@UbuntuOS] (2020, February 10). How Roblox went from Windows to Ubuntu in 7 days for edge compute nodes [Video]. YouTube.
  2. (n.d.) . "Rob Cameron". From LinkedIn. Archived from the original on February 11, 2023.

See also[]

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