Mobile Games Through the Nets: a Cross-Layer Architecture for Seamless Playing

Mobile games are characterized by the need to exploit responsive and reliable communication protocols, in order to guarantee that players can perceive a fluid and dynamic game-play evolution. Current approaches to the provision of support for this kind of real-time applications are generally based on the use of a single wireless network, as the transit from a network to another (or even changing the network service provider, while using the same network interface) causes a temporary reconfiguration of both the operating system and the network interface it is exploiting. This indeed results in a pause of game events processing at the application (game) level, which may give rise to a jerky game evolution. In order to overcome this problem, in this paper we propose the use of a cross-layer architecture which allows mobile devices to concurrently exploit different network interfaces so as to offer seamless and uninterrupted communications among the entities involved in the game. A smart adaptation algorithm balances the load between different network interfaces, based on the performances these are offering. The proposed approach can be viably implemented in client/server as well as in mirrored game server architectures. Experimental results conducted on a real field confirm both the adequacy and the effectiveness of our proposal.