JP6265337B2 - Program, recording medium, and drawing apparatus determination method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention, program relates record medium and writing apparatus determination method, a technique for providing particular a screen drawn by the server to the client terminal.

  With the recent development of communication technology, various services are provided using network communication such as the Internet. By connecting a client terminal such as a PC or a mobile phone to the server, the user can receive data relating to such a service from the server via the network. For example, the user can be provided with highly entertaining content such as a so-called network game.

  One of the network games is a multiplayer simultaneous network game such as MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). In such a multiplayer network game, the user connects a client terminal to be used to a server that provides the game, so that the user can play against the user who uses the client terminal connected to the server device. And cooperative play.

  In a general multiplayer network game, a client terminal transmits / receives data necessary for processing related to the game to / from a server, and a display device connected by drawing a game screen based on the received data To display. Specifically, information of operation input made at the client terminal is transmitted from the client terminal to the server and used for processing such as status update of each participating user managed in the server. In addition, data necessary for drawing the game screen, such as the status such as the position of the drawing character generated by processing such as state update, and chat text data, is transmitted from the server to the client terminal. By displaying the drawn game screen, the user can play the network game.

  However, some network games that perform drawing processing on such a client terminal require that the client terminal have sufficient drawing performance. For example, sufficient rendering performance is required to execute a game that provides a game screen represented by beautiful graphics such as realistic 3D graphics. Specifically, a texture that is used for beautiful graphics in the first place because it has a computing capability to perform drawing operations required by a drawing chip or the like that the client terminal has to draw the game screen. It is required to have a GPU memory for expanding resource data such as. However, drawing hardware having such a high drawing calculation capability and a large-capacity GPU memory is expensive, and the number of owned users is naturally limited. Therefore, it becomes a hurdle for the user to start using such a network game service, and as a result, it may be difficult to increase the number of users of the service.

  On the other hand, as a technology for providing a new service due to the development of communication technology, there is a technology in which a server draws a game screen and provides a game screen from the server to a client terminal. Patent Document 1 discloses a so-called cloud-type network game service technique for transmitting a game screen drawn on a server to a client terminal in a streaming format. According to such a game service, it is possible to provide a user with a game screen represented by beautiful graphics regardless of the drawing performance of the client terminal used by the user. In other words, the client terminal has the ability to receive a game screen transmitted in a streaming format via a network and display it on the display device, and even to transmit the information of operation input made at the client terminal to the server. Thus, it is possible to receive a game service without incurring the cost of introducing a dedicated device.

International Publication No. 2009/138878 Specification

  By the way, in the network game service as in Patent Document 1, it is conceivable to simultaneously generate and transmit a game screen to a plurality of client terminals that use the service at the same time. For this reason, in order to generate a game screen to be transmitted to the client terminal, an implementation in which a plurality of drawing servers are provided is conceivable. That is, for each client terminal that has made a screen transmission request to the server, one drawing server, such as the smallest number of assigned terminals, among the plurality of drawing servers is assigned and transmitted to the client terminal. Draw a game screen to play.

  However, the amount of computation required for the drawing process varies depending on the type of game, the scene in the game to be drawn, user settings, and the like. Therefore, in the conventional method in which the allocation is simply performed according to the number of terminals to be connected, the efficiency of calculation resources of the drawing server is not taken into consideration at all. For example, it relates to a client terminal that requests a game screen with a large calculation amount. A processing delay may occur in a drawing server to which many drawing processes are assigned. That is, until now, there has been no need to assign a drawing server to a client terminal based on the viewpoint of improving the efficiency of drawing processing.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, to provide Help program, a record medium and writing apparatus determines how to suitably reduce the amount of computation of the drawing processing according to the screen to be transmitted to the client terminal For the purpose.

In order to achieve the above object, a program according to one embodiment of the present invention obtains command information indicating a drawing command for a screen to be drawn, which indicates a drawing resource necessary for drawing the screen, on a computer. Based on the processing to receive, the development information indicating the drawing resources developed in the drawing device from each of the drawing devices, and the command information and the development information. And a process for determining a drawing device for drawing a screen related to the command information .

In order to achieve the above object, a drawing apparatus determination method according to an aspect of the present invention obtains command information indicating a drawing command for a screen to be drawn and indicating drawing resources necessary for drawing the screen. Then, the expansion information indicating the drawing resources developed in the drawing device is received from each of the drawing devices, and the command information is related to the command information from the drawing devices based on the command information and the development information. A drawing device for drawing the screen is determined .

  With such a configuration, according to the present invention, it is possible to suitably reduce the calculation amount of the drawing process related to the screen transmitted to the client terminal.

  Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the accompanying drawings, the same or similar components are denoted by the same reference numerals.

  The accompanying drawings are included in the specification, constitute a part thereof, show an embodiment of the present invention, and are used to explain the principle of the present invention together with the description.

The figure which showed the system configuration | structure of the drawing system which concerns on Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which showed the function structure of the instruction server 100 which concerns on Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which showed the function structure of the drawing server 300 which concerns on embodiment of this invention. The flowchart which illustrated the screen provision process performed in the drawing system which concerns on Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure for demonstrating the information which concerns on the drawing command which concerns on embodiment of this invention The figure which showed the system configuration | structure of the drawing system which concerns on Embodiment 2 of this invention. The figure which showed the function structure of the instruction server 100 which concerns on Embodiment 2 of this invention. The flowchart which illustrated the screen provision process performed in the drawing system which concerns on Embodiment 2 of this invention The figure which showed the system configuration | structure of the drawing system which concerns on Embodiment 3 of this invention. The figure which showed the function structure of the instruction server 100 which concerns on Embodiment 3 of this invention. The figure which showed the function structure of the relay apparatus 200 which concerns on Embodiment 3 of this invention. The flowchart which illustrated the screen provision process performed in the drawing system which concerns on Embodiment 3 of this invention.

[Embodiment 1]
Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. An embodiment described below is an example of a drawing system, which draws a game screen in response to a screen request received from a client terminal via a network and displays the obtained game screen in a streaming format via the network. An example in which the present invention is applied to a game system transmitted to a terminal will be described. However, the present invention is not limited to a game, and can be applied to any device and system that can draw a screen according to a request from a client terminal and transmit the obtained screen to the client terminal.

<Drawing system configuration>
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a system configuration of a drawing system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. In the drawing system of this embodiment, a game screen is drawn in response to a request received from each client terminal 400 and transmitted to the client terminal 400.

  First, when a game screen provision request is made from one client terminal 400 to the instruction server 100 through the network 500 by an operation of a user or the like, the instruction server 100 executes a calculation process related to the game screen to be provided, Information related to a screen drawing command is generated.

  A plurality of drawing servers 300 are connected to the instruction server 100, and the instruction server 100 sends one drawing server 300 to the game screen to one client terminal 400 that has received the game screen provision request. Assign to the server that performs the drawing process. The instruction server 100 and the drawing server 300 may be connected via the network 500 as in the case of the instruction server 100 and the client terminal 400, or the instruction server 100 and the drawing server 300 are connected within a predetermined local network. It may be a thing.

  Although detailed processing of the drawing server 300 will be described later, each drawing server 300 stores drawing resources (model data, texture data, drawing programs that realize screen effects, etc.) necessary for generating the game screen. The drawing server 300 draws the game screen while expanding and using the resource.

  Hereinafter, the functional configuration of each device of the game system according to the present embodiment having such a system configuration will be described with reference to a block diagram. In the following description, with respect to similar hardware used in a plurality of apparatuses, prefixes of “instruction” and “drawing” are given to the instruction server 100 and the drawing server 300 in order to distinguish the hardware among the apparatuses. It explains with a letter. However, these prefix characters are merely used for identifying hardware between devices, and are not used to specify the functions and operations of the hardware in the description of this embodiment.

<Configuration of Command Server 100>
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the instruction server 100 according to the drawing system of the present embodiment.

  The instruction CPU 101 controls the operation of each block included in the instruction server 100. Specifically, the instruction CPU 101 controls the operation of each block by reading the operation program of each block and the program such as an application stored in the instruction ROM 102, developing the program in the instruction RAM 103, and executing the program. Further, the instruction CPU 101 executes necessary arithmetic processing related to a game that provides a screen to the client terminal 400, and generates information related to a drawing instruction that instructs to draw a game screen.

  The instruction ROM 102 is a recording device that permanently records data, such as a nonvolatile memory. The instruction ROM 102 stores not only the operation program for each block of the instruction server 100 but also information such as parameters used in the operation of each block. The instruction RAM 103 is a volatile memory. The instruction RAM 103 is used not only as a development area for the operation program of each block, but also as a storage area for intermediate data output in the operation of each block, or as a work area for processing each block.

  The command communication unit 104 is a communication interface with an external device included in the command server 100. In the present embodiment, the command communication unit 104 receives a screen transmission request from the client terminal 400 and information on an operation input made at the client terminal 400. In addition, the command communication unit 104 receives information on the drawing resources developed in the GPU memory 306 of the drawing server 300 from each of the drawing servers 300 connected to the command server 100. In addition, the command communication unit 104 identifies information related to the generated drawing command and the client terminal 400 that is the transmission destination of the game screen to the drawing server 300 that causes the client terminal 400 to generate and transmit the game screen. Information (transmission destination information) for transmission.

  The instruction development grasping unit 105 manages the drawing resource information developed in the GPU memory 306 received from each of the connected drawing servers 300 in association with the identification information of the drawing server 300. In the present embodiment, the instruction CPU 101 assigns drawing of the game screen to the drawing server 300 in which the drawing resources to be used are already developed in the GPU memory 306 for the game screen drawn by the drawing command. This is based on the fact that the drawing process can be made more efficient by reusing drawing resources developed in the GPU memory 306.

  The drawing resources used for drawing the game screen are recorded in a general recording device such as an HDD or a game software ROM. However, such a recording device is not suitable for frequent access, and the drawing processing is performed each time in the drawing process. Reading data is inefficient. Therefore, the drawing resource is usually read from the recording device and developed in a development area such as the GPU memory 306 and held so that high-speed data access is possible. Since the GPU memory 306 is configured to allow high-speed access from the GPU 305, which will be described later, by using the developed drawing resources for the drawing process, the drawing process by the GPU 305 can be made efficient. In general, it can be said that the distribution of the drawing objects included in the game screen in the continuous frames is little changed while the same scene is played in the game progress. That is, for example, if a drawing resource has already been developed in the GPU memory 306 in the drawing process related to the previous frame, it is highly possible that the drawing resource can be reused in the drawing process related to the next frame. In particular, when a service is provided such that a plurality of client terminals 400 can play the same game content as in the drawing system of the present embodiment, a game screen related to the same scene is displayed on the plurality of client terminals 400. There is a possibility of transmission. Even in such a case, there is a high possibility that the drawing resources once developed in the GPU memory 306 can be reused. That is, it is possible to improve efficiency by assigning the drawing of the game screen using the same drawing resource to the same drawing server 300.

  Specifically, the instruction development grasping unit 105 outputs information specifying the drawing server 300 in which the requested drawing resource is developed in the GPU memory 306 based on the managed information. The instruction CPU 101 can determine the drawing server 300 based on the output information, thereby improving the efficiency of drawing the game screen in the drawing system.

  In the present embodiment, the drawing server 300 transmits the drawing resource information developed in the GPU memory 306 to the instruction server 100, and the instruction development grasping unit 105 already has a drawing resource corresponding to the drawing command based on the information. Although the description will be made assuming that the drawing server 300 being deployed is specified, the implementation of the present invention is not limited to this. For example, with respect to a plurality of connected drawing servers 300, a drawing server 300 that performs development on the GPU memory 306 for each drawing resource used for generating a game screen, such as texture data having a large amount of data, is determined in advance. In this case, it is not necessary to transmit the information about the drawn drawing resource to the instruction server 100. In this case, the command CPU 101 may determine the drawing server 300 that transmits information related to the drawing command based on information of the drawing server 300 determined in advance. For example, the instruction CPU 101 acquires scene information related to the game screen generated from information related to the drawing command, and assigns drawing of the game screen to the drawing server 300 to which development of drawing resources corresponding to the scene is assigned in advance. Just do it.

<Configuration of Drawing Server 300>
FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the drawing server 300 according to the drawing system of the present embodiment.

  The drawing CPU 301 controls the operation of each block included in the drawing server 300. Specifically, the drawing CPU 301 controls the operation of each block by reading the operation program for each block stored in the drawing ROM 302, developing it in the drawing RAM 303, and executing it.

  The drawing ROM 302 is a recording device that permanently records data, such as a nonvolatile memory. The drawing ROM 302 stores not only the operation program for each block of the drawing server 300 but also information such as parameters necessary for the operation of each block. The drawing RAM 303 is a volatile memory. The drawing RAM 303 is used not only as a development area for the operation program of each block, but also as a storage area for intermediate data output in the operation of each block, or as a work area for processing each block.

  The drawing communication unit 304 is a communication interface with an external device included in the drawing server 300. In the present embodiment, the drawing communication unit 304 receives information related to a drawing command and transmission destination information from the command server 100. The drawing communication unit 304 transmits the game screen drawn based on the information related to the drawing command to the client terminal 400 specified by the transmission destination information in a streaming format.

  The GPU 305 draws the game screen according to the drawing command generated based on the received information related to the drawing command. Specifically, the drawing CPU 301 generates a drawing command related to drawing of the game screen from information related to the drawing command, and transmits the drawing command to the GPU 305. Further, the drawing CPU 301 refers to drawing resource information necessary for generating the game screen included in the information related to the drawing command, and when the GPU memory 306 includes drawing resources that are not yet developed, the drawing CPU 301 stores the resources in the resource DB 307. Are read out from the memory and expanded in the GPU memory 306. The GPU 305 draws the game screen using the resources developed in the GPU memory 306 according to the transmitted drawing command. The GPU 305 of the present embodiment encodes the obtained game screen in a predetermined encoding format corresponding to the streaming format, and generates and outputs moving image data.

  The GPU memory 306 is a work area used in the drawing process provided so as to be accessible to the drawing CPU 301 and the GPU 305 such as a DRAM. The resource DB 307 is a recording device such as an HDD, and stores drawing resource data.

《Screen provision processing》
A specific process of the screen providing process of the drawing system of the present embodiment having such a configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The processing corresponding to the flowchart is performed by each of the instruction CPU 101 of the instruction server 100 and the drawing CPU 301 of the drawing server 300 reading, for example, a corresponding processing program stored in the respective ROM, developing it in the RAM, and executing it. Can be realized. This screen providing process is started when a screen transmission request such as a request for providing game content from an arbitrary client terminal 400 (target client terminal) is made in the instruction server 100, for example, and is repeated according to a frame update of the game screen. It will be described as being executed.

  In step S401, the instruction CPU 101 determines whether an operation input has been made on the target client terminal. Specifically, the command CPU 101 determines this step based on whether or not the command communication unit 104 has received information related to an operation input from the target client terminal. If the instruction CPU 101 determines that an operation input has been made, the process advances to step S402. If the instruction CPU 101 determines that an operation input has not been made, the instruction CPU 101 advances the process to step S403.

  In step S <b> 402, the instruction CPU 101 performs a process of updating parameter information managed for a game to be provided based on information related to an operation input received from the target client terminal.

  In step S <b> 403, the instruction CPU 101 executes arithmetic processing and the like necessary for generating a game screen for the current frame. The arithmetic processing performed in this step includes, for example, processing for calculating parameters necessary for dynamic object state change and drawing commands. After execution of the arithmetic processing, the instruction CPU 101 generates parameters (information related to the drawing instruction) necessary for generating the drawing instruction for the game screen of the current frame based on the calculation result.

  The information related to the drawing command generated by the command CPU 101 of the present embodiment is changed by the command ID that specifies the type of command, the object ID that specifies the object to be commanded, and the command, for example, as shown in FIG. It consists of other information indicating parameters used in the execution of instructions such as parameters. The purpose of this is to reduce the transmission delay by reducing the amount of data rather than sending the drawing command as it is. In this step, the command CPU 101 is a simplified version of the drawing command. To reduce the amount of data. The information related to the drawing command is information that has been subjected to data compression based on a predetermined rule. In this embodiment, the drawing server 300 can construct a drawing command from the information.

  However, the information transmitted to the drawing server 300 in the embodiment of the present invention is not limited to this. That is, in this embodiment, the drawing server 300 is described as transmitting information related to a drawing command as information that can configure a drawing command. However, the drawing command and the information related to the drawing command are equivalent information and are transmitted. The information may be the drawing command itself. However, from the viewpoint of reducing transmission delay, it is needless to say that it is preferable to transmit information related to a drawing command, which is information with a smaller amount of data.

  In step S <b> 404, the instruction CPU 101 determines a drawing server 300 for drawing a game screen. Specifically, the command CPU 101 specifies a drawing resource that is required when performing processing related to screen drawing according to a drawing command indicated by information related to the drawing command. Then, the instruction CPU 101 obtains, from the instruction development grasping unit 105, information on one drawing server 300 that develops the specified drawing resource in the development area from the connected drawing servers 300, and performs drawing for drawing. The server 300 is determined. Alternatively, when there is no drawing server 300 that develops the specified drawing resource in the development area, the instruction CPU 101 selects a predetermined type such as a background texture with a large amount of data from the connected drawing servers 300. The drawing server 300 that has not yet been developed is determined. In this way, it is possible to control so that different drawing resources are developed in each GPU memory 306 of the connected drawing server 300.

  It is not necessary to determine whether or not drawing resources necessary for screen drawing are expanded in the expansion area by matching all the drawing resources used for generating the game screen related to the drawing command. For example, in a game that progresses while switching scenes, drawing resources such as drawing objects and background textures to be placed in the field for each scene are determined in advance. May be. Further, since the background texture or the like generally tends to increase the amount of data, the determination may be made based on whether or not the background texture or the like is expanded. In this case, control may be performed so that all background textures used in the game are developed in the GPU memories 306 of the different drawing servers 300.

  In step S405, the instruction CPU 101 transmits information related to the drawing instruction and transmission destination information to the instruction communication unit 104, and transmits the information to the drawing server 300 determined in step S404.

  In step S <b> 406, the drawing CPU 301 determines whether information related to a drawing command and destination information are received from the associated command server 100. If the drawing CPU 301 determines that the information related to the drawing command and the destination information have been received, the drawing CPU 301 moves the process to S407, and if it determines that the information has not been received, repeats the processing of this step.

  In step S <b> 407, the drawing CPU 301 reconstructs the drawing command from the received information related to the drawing command and transmits the drawing command to the GPU 305. Further, the drawing CPU 301 reads a new drawing resource from the resource DB 307 as necessary, and develops it in the GPU memory 306. Here, the new drawing resource read out as necessary refers to a drawing resource that has not yet been developed in the GPU memory 306 among drawing resources necessary for drawing the game screen. Then, the GPU 305 uses the drawing resources developed in the GPU memory 306 to draw the game screen according to the drawing command.

  In S408, the GPU 305 encodes the game screen, and the drawing CPU 301 transmits the encoded game screen data to the drawing communication unit 304, and transmits the data to the target client terminal based on the destination information.

  By doing in this way, in the drawing system of this embodiment, it is possible to reduce the amount of calculation of drawing processing related to the entire drawing system by suitably using drawing resources used for drawing the game screen.

  In the present embodiment, the drawing server 300 is described as being configured as a single server, but the implementation of the present invention is not limited to this. For example, when configuring as one drawing unit (for example, GPU) to which independent development areas are assigned, instead of configuring as a single server, the instruction server 100 includes a drawing device having a plurality of drawing units. It may be configured as a device that doubles as. In this case, the instruction CPU 101 specifies a development area where a drawing resource used in generating the game screen corresponding to the drawing instruction is developed, and generates a screen for the drawing unit associated with the development area. Assign it.

  As described above, the drawing system of the present embodiment can suitably reduce the amount of calculation of the drawing process related to the screen transmitted to the client terminal. Specifically, the drawing system includes a command server that sends information related to a screen drawing command based on information received from the client terminal, and draws a screen according to the information related to the drawing command received from the command server. And a drawing server for transmission to the terminal. The instruction server draws a drawing server that is developing at least a part of drawing resources necessary for drawing a screen according to the information related to the drawing instruction among a plurality of drawing servers associated with the instruction server. Information related to the command and destination information are transmitted. Then, the drawing server reads out drawing resources that have not yet been developed among necessary drawing resources, develops and holds them in the development area, draws the screen based on the information related to the drawing command, and transmits to the target client terminal .

[Embodiment 2]
In the above-described embodiment, the method of reducing the amount of calculation of the drawing process related to the entire drawing system by effectively using the drawing resources in each of the drawing servers 300 connected to the instruction server 100 has been described. Specifically, from one drawing server 300 connected to the instruction server 100, drawing is performed on one drawing server 300 that develops drawing resources necessary for performing processing related to screen drawing in the development area. The aspect of suitably utilizing drawing resources by determining the server to perform has been described. In the present embodiment, a method for reducing transmission delay between the server and the client terminal while suitably using drawing resources will be described.

  In a network game service such as Patent Document 1, since a game screen is transmitted, the amount of communication data between a server and a client terminal is larger than that in a conventional network game service, which may cause an effect of transmission delay. . In other words, the method of transmitting the drawn game screen in the streaming format, although data compression or the like is applied, a larger amount of data communication is always performed than the data required for drawing the conventional game screen. Therefore, the communication band can be pressed. In addition, when the transmission path between the server and the client terminal is long, the transmission delay due to such compression of the communication band appears more prominently, which may hinder the user's game experience.

  In particular, in a so-called real-time game where response performance is required until a change made in response to a user operation input is reflected on the game screen, such a transmission delay may cause the game performance to fail. Can be. In the present embodiment, a drawing system that reduces such transmission delay will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

  In the embodiment described below, as an example of a drawing system, a game screen is drawn in response to a screen request received from a client terminal via a network, and the obtained game screen is streamed via the network in the client terminal An example in which the present invention is applied to a game system to be transmitted to will be described. However, the present invention is not limited to a game, and can be applied to any device and system that can draw a screen according to a request from a client terminal and transmit the obtained screen to the client terminal. In the following description, the same reference numerals are assigned to the same configurations as those of the drawing system of the first embodiment described above, and the description thereof is omitted.

<Drawing system configuration>
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a system configuration of a drawing system according to the second embodiment of the present invention. In the drawing system of this embodiment, as in the first embodiment, a game screen is drawn in response to a request received from each client terminal 400 and transmitted to the client terminal 400.

  First, when a game screen provision request is made from one client terminal 400 to the instruction server 100 through the network 500 by an operation of a user or the like, the instruction server 100 executes a calculation process related to the game screen to be provided, Information related to a screen drawing command is generated. Further, the instruction server 100 specifies an area where the client terminal 400 that provides the game screen exists, that is, an access point, and determines a drawing server 300 group that provides the game screen to the client terminal 400. In this embodiment, description will be made assuming that drawing of a game screen provided to the client terminal 400 is assigned to the drawing server 300 group installed in the area closest to the area where the client terminal 400 exists. Implementation is not limited to this. That is, the location of the client terminal 400 is specifically specified, and the drawing processing is not assigned to the drawing server 300 group that is strictly located in the nearest region, but is set in the region associated with the specified region. A drawing process may be assigned to the drawing server 300 group.

  A plurality of drawing servers 300 are installed for each predetermined area, and each area forms a drawing server 300 group. However, in the implementation of the present invention, the number of drawing servers 300 installed in each area is not limited to this, and may be appropriately determined according to the number of users in the area. As in the first embodiment, each of the drawing servers 300 has drawing resources (such as a drawing program that realizes model data, texture data, screen effects, etc.) necessary for generating a game screen. Draw the game screen while using it.

<Configuration of Command Server 100>
FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the instruction server 100 according to the drawing system of the present embodiment.

  The instruction server 100 according to the present embodiment further includes an area specifying unit 111 in addition to the configuration of the first embodiment. The area specifying unit 111 specifies the area where the client terminal 400 exists from, for example, information used for establishing a communication connection with the client terminal 400 or information on a transmission destination address included in a screen transmission request received from the client terminal 400. .

《Screen provision processing》
Next, specific processing of the screen providing process of the drawing system according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The processing corresponding to the flowchart is performed by each of the instruction CPU 101 of the instruction server 100 and the drawing CPU 301 of the drawing server 300 reading, for example, a corresponding processing program stored in the respective ROM, developing it in the RAM, and executing it. Can be realized. This screen providing process is started when a screen transmission request such as a request for providing game content from an arbitrary client terminal 400 (target client terminal) is made in the instruction server 100, for example, and is repeated according to a frame update of the game screen. It will be described as being executed. Further, in the following description of the screen providing process, the steps for performing the same process as in the first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals and the description thereof is omitted, and the characteristic process of the screen providing process of the present embodiment is performed. Keep only the steps.

  After generating the information related to the drawing command in S403, the command CPU 101 determines the drawing server 300 for drawing the game screen in S801, and moves the process to S405. Specifically, the command CPU 101 specifies a drawing resource that is required when performing processing related to screen drawing according to a drawing command indicated by information related to the drawing command. Then, the instruction CPU 101 specifies the drawing server 300 group corresponding to the area where the target client terminal exists based on the information about the area where the target client terminal exists, which is specified by the area specifying unit 111. The instruction CPU 101 obtains information of one drawing server 300 that develops the specified drawing resource in the development area from the drawing server 300 group as the drawing server 300 that performs drawing by obtaining information from the instruction development grasping unit 105. decide. Alternatively, when there is no drawing server 300 that develops the drawing resources specified in the drawing server 300 group in the development area, the instruction CPU 101 has not yet developed a predetermined type of drawing resource from the drawing server 300 group. The drawing server 300 is not determined.

  By doing in this way, in the drawing system of this embodiment, it is possible to reduce the amount of calculation of drawing processing related to the entire drawing system by suitably using drawing resources used for drawing the game screen. Further, the drawing system can reduce the transmission path related to the transmission of the game screen, and can efficiently reduce the transmission delay when the screen drawn according to the screen request is provided to the client terminal.

  Further, the above-described problem of transmission delay can be reduced by shortening the transmission path when transmitting a game screen that can increase the amount of data to the target client terminal. That is, in one aspect, the present invention has the same effect when the information transmitted from the instruction server 100 to the drawing server 300 is not the information related to the drawing command but is the drawing command itself. That is, since the effect can be realized regardless of whether the drawing command data or the simplified drawing command data is transmitted, in one aspect, the information related to the drawing command is any of the two data. May be expressed.

  In the present embodiment, the drawing server 300 is described as being configured as a single server. However, like the first embodiment, the embodiment of the present invention is not limited thereto. That is, when each drawing server 300 of the drawing server 300 group is not configured as a single server as in the present embodiment, but is configured as one drawing unit (for example, GPU) to which independent development areas are assigned. May be configured such that a drawing server having a plurality of drawing units is provided in each region instead of the drawing server 300 group. In this case, when the drawing server in each region receives the information related to the drawing command from the command server 100, the drawing server identifies the development region where the drawing resource used in generating the game screen corresponding to the drawing command is developed, and The generation of the screen may be assigned to the drawing unit associated with the development area.

[Modification]
In the second embodiment described above, the method of reducing the transmission delay by assigning the drawing of the game screen to the drawing server having a short transmission path in order to improve the screen update response to the operation performed at the client terminal has been described. However, the method for reducing the transmission delay is not limited to this.

  For example, the determination of the drawing server 300 that performs drawing of the game screen in S801 of the screen providing process according to the second embodiment is performed in the drawing server 300 installed in a plurality of areas determined to correspond to the area where the target client terminal exists. A group is extracted and one of the drawing servers 300 is selected based on the total number of connected terminals, the average transmission rate, the GPU operating rate, the congestion status, etc. One drawing server 300 may be determined. Alternatively, instead of selecting the drawing server 300 group according to the operation status, drawing required when performing processing related to screen drawing according to a drawing command installed in an area corresponding to the area where the target client terminal exists. One drawing server 300 may be determined from the drawing servers 300 that are developing resources according to the operation status. Further, it is not necessary to limit the drawing server 300 for drawing the game screen to those installed in the area set as corresponding to the area where the target client terminal exists, and simply the operation status and the drawing resource The drawing server 300 installed at any position may be determined based only on the development status.

  In addition, the operation status is grasped based on, for example, at least one of the number of connected terminals, the average transmission rate, the GPU operation rate, the congestion status, and the length of the transmission path, or a combination thereof. Good. Further, in order to evaluate the operation status, an evaluation formula having at least one of these items as an evaluation coefficient may be provided. Further, in a situation where the number of drawing servers connected to the instruction server 100 is relatively large, the method in which the instruction CPU 101 calculates the evaluation values for all the drawing servers 300 can impose computation resources on the instruction server 100, so The configuration may be such that the evaluation value is transmitted from the server 300 to the instruction server 100.

[Embodiment 3]
In the second embodiment described above, the instruction server 100 has been described as being able to grasp the drawing server 300 groups in all regions and the drawing resource information developed in the development area of each drawing server 300. However, depending on the scale of the drawing system, it may not be practical to centrally manage the drawing resource information developed for all the drawing servers 300 in each region in the instruction server 100. That is, since the instruction server 100 grasps the development status of these drawing resources in addition to the arithmetic processing necessary for generating the game screen of the frame provided to each client terminal, the load is concentrated on the instruction server 100. there's a possibility that. In the present embodiment, an example will be described in which a relay apparatus that manages the development status of each drawing resource of the drawing server 300 in the drawing server 300 group is provided for each region in order to perform load distribution in such a drawing system.

  Hereinafter, the drawing system of this embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. An embodiment described below is an example of a drawing system, which draws a game screen in response to a screen request received from a client terminal via a network and displays the obtained game screen in a streaming format via the network. An example in which the present invention is applied to a game system transmitted to a terminal will be described. However, the present invention is not limited to a game, and can be applied to any device and system that can draw a screen according to a request from a client terminal and transmit the obtained screen to the client terminal. In the following description, the same reference numerals are assigned to the same configurations as those in the drawing systems of the first and second embodiments described above, and description thereof is omitted.

<Drawing system configuration>
FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a system configuration of the drawing system according to the embodiment of the present invention. In the drawing system of this embodiment, as in the first and second embodiments, a game screen is drawn in response to a request received from each client terminal 400 and transmitted to the client terminal 400.

  First, when a game screen provision request is made from one client terminal 400 to the instruction server 100 through the network 500 by an operation of a user or the like, the instruction server 100 executes a calculation process related to the game screen to be provided, Information related to a screen drawing command is generated. Further, the instruction server 100 specifies an area where the client terminal 400 that provides the game screen exists, that is, an access point, and determines a drawing server 300 group that provides the game screen to the client terminal 400. In the present embodiment, as in the second embodiment, the drawing of the game screen provided to the client terminal 400 is assigned to the drawing server 300 group installed in the area closest to the area where the client terminal 400 exists. However, the implementation of the present invention is not limited to this.

  A plurality of drawing servers 300 are installed for each predetermined area, and each area forms a drawing server 300 group. As with the first and second embodiments, each of the drawing servers 300 has drawing resources (model data, texture data, drawing programs that realize screen effects, etc.) necessary for generating the game screen. Draw the game screen while expanding and using it. The drawing server 300 that actually draws the game screen is determined by the relay device 200 that has received information related to the drawing command from the command server 100.

  The relay device 200 is provided for each area, similarly to the drawing server 300 group, and is associated with the corresponding drawing server 300 group in the area. Also, the relay device 200 determines one server of the drawing server 300 group as the drawing server 300 that generates the game screen, and relays information related to the drawing command to the server to draw the game screen. Make it.

  In FIG. 9, only the command server 100 and the client terminal 400 are connected via the network 500, and the command server 100 and the relay device 200, the relay device 200 and each drawing server 300, and the drawing server 300 and the client terminal 400 are connected to the network 500. Not shown as connecting through. This is simply due to the fact that information flow from the instruction server 100 to the relay device 200, from the relay device 200 to each drawing server 300, and from the drawing server 300 to the client terminal 400 is shown without going through the network 500. It will be readily understood that communication between these devices takes place via the network 500 or some network.

  Hereinafter, the functional configuration of each device of the game system according to the present embodiment having such a system configuration will be described with reference to a block diagram. In the following description, for the same hardware used in a plurality of apparatuses, in order to distinguish the hardware among the apparatuses, the “command”, “ Explanation is given with prefixes of “relay” and “drawing”. However, these prefix characters are merely used for identifying hardware between devices, and are not used to specify the functions and operations of the hardware in the description of this embodiment.

<Configuration of Command Server 100>
FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the instruction server 100 according to the drawing system of the present embodiment. The instruction server 100 of the present embodiment has the same configuration as that of the second embodiment except that the instruction expansion grasping unit 105 is excluded, and thus detailed description thereof is omitted.

<Configuration of Relay Device 200>
FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the relay apparatus 200 according to the drawing system of the present embodiment.

  The relay CPU 201 controls the operation of each block included in the relay device 200. Specifically, the relay CPU 201 controls the operation of each block by reading the operation program for each block stored in the relay ROM 202 and developing it in the relay RAM 203 for execution.

  The relay ROM 202 is a recording device that permanently records data, such as a nonvolatile memory. The relay ROM 202 stores not only the operation program for each block of the relay apparatus 200 but also information such as parameters necessary for the operation of each block. The relay RAM 203 is a volatile memory. The relay RAM 203 is used not only as a development area for the operation program of each block, but also as a storage area for intermediate data output in the operation of each block, or as a work area for processing each block.

  The relay communication unit 204 is a communication interface with an external device included in the relay device 200. In the present embodiment, the relay communication unit 204 receives information related to a drawing command and transmission destination information from the command server 100, and the GPU memory of the drawing server 300 from each of the drawing servers 300 associated with the relay communication unit 204. Information on the drawing resources developed in 306 is received. Further, the relay communication unit 204 transmits information related to the drawing command and transmission destination information to the drawing server 300 that draws the game screen.

  The relay development grasping unit 205 manages the drawing resource information developed in the GPU memory 306 received from each of the associated drawing servers 300 in association with the drawing server 300 identification information. In this embodiment, the relay CPU 201 assigns drawing of the game screen to the drawing server 300 in which the drawing resources used for the game screen drawn by the drawing command are already developed in the GPU memory 306. As described above, this is based on the fact that the drawing process can be made more efficient by reusing the drawing resources developed in the GPU memory 306.

  In this embodiment, the drawing server 300 transmits drawing resource information developed in the GPU memory 306 to the relay device 200, and the relay development grasping unit 205 has already drawn drawing resources corresponding to the drawing command based on the information. Although the description will be made assuming that the drawing server 300 being deployed is specified, the implementation of the present invention is not limited to this. For example, in the drawing server 300 group, when a drawing server 300 that performs development on the GPU memory 306 for each of the drawing resources used for generating the game screen, such as texture data having a large amount of data, is developed in advance. It is not necessary for the information of the drawing resource that is present to be transmitted to the relay apparatus 200. In this case, the relay CPU 201 may determine the drawing server 300 that transmits information related to the drawing command based on information of the drawing server 300 determined in advance. For example, the relay CPU 201 acquires scene information related to the game screen generated from information related to the drawing command, and assigns drawing of the game screen to the drawing server 300 to which development of drawing resources corresponding to the scene is assigned in advance. Just do it.

《Screen provision processing》
A specific process of the screen providing process of the drawing system of the present embodiment having such a configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The processing corresponding to the flowchart is as follows. Each of the instruction CPU 101 of the instruction server 100, the relay CPU 201 of the relay device 200, and the drawing CPU 301 of the drawing server 300 reads out the corresponding processing program stored in the respective ROM, for example. It can be realized by expanding and executing. This screen providing process is started when a screen transmission request such as a request for providing game content from an arbitrary client terminal 400 (target client terminal) is made in the instruction server 100, for example, and is repeated according to a frame update of the game screen. It will be described as being executed. Further, in the following description of the screen providing process, the same reference numerals are assigned to the steps for performing the same processes as in the first and second embodiments, and the description thereof is omitted, and the processes characteristic of the screen providing process of the present embodiment are omitted. Only the steps to perform are described.

  After generating the information related to the drawing command in S403, the command CPU 101 sends the information related to the generated drawing command and the destination information necessary for transmitting data to the target client terminal to the command communication unit 104 in S1201. The data is transmitted and sent to the relay apparatus 200. In this step, it is assumed that the command CPU 101 determines the relay device 200 that is the target of information transmission by the command communication unit 104 based on the information on the region where the target client terminal specified by the region specifying unit 111 exists.

  In step S <b> 1202, the relay CPU 201 determines whether the information related to the drawing command and the destination information are received from the command server 100. The relay CPU 201 moves the process to S1203 when determining that the information related to the drawing command and the destination information are received, and repeats the process of this step when determining that the information is not received.

  In step S1203, the relay CPU 201 determines the drawing server 300 that performs drawing of the game screen. Specifically, the relay CPU 201 specifies a drawing resource necessary for performing processing related to screen drawing according to the drawing command indicated by the information from the information related to the drawing command. Then, the relay CPU 201 acquires, from the relay deployment grasping unit 205, information on one drawing server 300 in the drawing server 300 group associated with the relay device 200 that is developing the specified drawing resource in the development area. The drawing server 300 is determined to perform drawing. Alternatively, when there is no drawing server 300 that develops the specified drawing resource in the development area, the relay CPU 201 does not yet develop a predetermined type of drawing resource such as a background texture with a large amount of data. 300 is determined. By doing so, it is possible to control so that different drawing resources are developed in the GPU memory 306 of each of the servers of the drawing server 300 group.

  In step S1204, the relay CPU 201 transmits information related to the drawing command and transmission destination information to the relay communication unit 204, and transmits the information to the drawing server 300 determined in step S1203.

  In step S <b> 1205, the drawing CPU 301 determines whether information related to a drawing command and destination information are received from the associated relay device 200. If the drawing CPU 301 determines that the information related to the drawing command and the destination information have been received, the drawing CPU 301 moves the process to S407, and if it determines that the information has not been received, repeats the processing of this step.

  By doing in this way, in the drawing system of this embodiment, it is possible to reduce the amount of calculation of drawing processing related to the entire drawing system by suitably using drawing resources used for drawing the game screen. Further, the drawing system can reduce the transmission path related to the transmission of the game screen, and can efficiently reduce the transmission delay when the screen drawn according to the screen request is provided to the client terminal. In addition, it is possible to distribute the processing load by monitoring the development status of the drawing resources in the drawing system.

  In the present embodiment, the relay apparatus 200 has been described as being provided as an entity separated from the instruction server 100 and the drawing server 300, but the implementation of the present invention is not limited to this. The relay apparatus 200 may be configured integrally with the instruction server 100, and may designate a specific drawing server 300 among the drawing servers 300 in each region and transmit information related to the drawing instruction. In addition, when the drawing server 300 is not configured as a single server as in the present embodiment, but is configured as one drawing unit (for example, GPU) to which independent development areas are assigned, the relay device 200 You may comprise integrally with the apparatus for drawing which has a some drawing unit. In this case, when the relay apparatus 200 receives the information related to the drawing command from the command server 100, the relay device 200 identifies the development area where the drawing resources used in generating the game screen corresponding to the drawing command are developed, and the development area The generation of the screen may be assigned to the drawing unit associated with.

  In the present embodiment, the drawing server 300 is described as reconstructing the drawing command from the information related to the drawing command. However, in the embodiment of the present invention, the reconstruction of the drawing command is performed by either the relay device 200 or the drawing server 300. It may be done at. When reconstruction is performed in the relay device 200, a transmission delay between the instruction server 100 and the relay device 200 can be reduced. When reconstruction is performed in the drawing server 300, transmission delays both between the instruction server 100 and the relay device 200 and between the relay device 200 and the drawing server 300 can be reduced. That is, the effect obtained by compressing and transmitting the drawing command can be realized regardless of whether the drawing command is reconstructed by either the relay apparatus 200 or the drawing server 300.

  As described above, it is possible to suitably reduce the calculation amount of the drawing process related to the screen transmitted to the client terminal. Specifically, the drawing system includes a command server that transmits information related to a screen drawing command based on information received from the client terminal, and a drawing server that performs screen drawing according to the information related to the drawing command and transmits the information to the client terminal. And a relay device that transmits information related to the drawing command received from the command server to the drawing server. The command server specifies an area where the target client terminal exists, and sends information related to the drawing command and transmission destination information to a relay apparatus existing in the corresponding area. In addition, the relay device draws the drawing server that has developed at least a part of the drawing resources necessary for drawing the screen according to the drawing command among the plurality of drawing servers associated with the relay device. Information related to the command and destination information are transmitted. Then, the drawing server reads out drawing resources that have not yet been developed among necessary drawing resources, develops and holds them in the development area, draws the screen based on the information related to the drawing command, and transmits to the target client terminal .

[Other Embodiments]
The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The drawing system according to the present invention can also be realized by a program that causes one or more computers to function as respective devices of the drawing system. The program can be provided / distributed by being recorded on a computer-readable recording medium or through a telecommunication line. In order to make the scope of the present invention public, the following claims are attached.

Claims (8)

On the computer,
    Processing for obtaining command information indicating a drawing resource necessary for drawing a screen, which is command information indicating a drawing command of a screen to be drawn;
    A process of receiving development information indicating drawing resources developed in the drawing device from each of the plurality of drawing devices;
    Based on the command information and the development information, a process of determining a drawing device for drawing a screen related to the command information from the plurality of drawing devices;
A program that executes 2. The determination process according to claim 1, wherein among the plurality of drawing devices, a drawing device that develops at least a part of a necessary drawing resource indicated by the command information is determined as the drawing device to be drawn. Program. The screen to be drawn is a screen provided to the client device,
  The program according to claim 1, wherein the determined drawing device draws a screen related to the command information and transmits the screen to the client device. The program according to claim 3, wherein the determining process determines a drawing device to be drawn from drawing devices existing in an area associated with a position where the client device exists. The computer further includes a process for evaluating at least one of the number of connected terminals, an average transmission rate, a GPU operation rate, a congestion status, and a length of a transmission path between the drawing devices for each of the plurality of drawing devices. Let it run
  5. The program according to claim 3, wherein the determining process determines a drawing device to be drawn based on an evaluation result of the evaluating process, the command information, and the development information. The program according to any one of claims 1 to 5, further causing the computer to execute a process of transmitting the command information to the determined drawing apparatus. The computer-readable recording medium which recorded the program of any one of Claims 1 thru | or 6. Command information indicating a drawing command of a screen to be drawn, and acquiring command information indicating a drawing resource necessary for drawing the screen;
  From each of the plurality of drawing devices, receiving development information indicating drawing resources developed in the drawing device;
  A drawing device determination method for determining a drawing device for drawing a screen related to the command information from the plurality of drawing devices based on the command information and the development information.

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