Using Havok for a headless server

Questions
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Hi all,
I am researching which technologies I want to use for my next project. I am trying to find out if Babylon.js is a good fit for my project.

This project will include a server-client approach. In this case, I will (also) want to run Havok on the headless server. Is it possible to do this, or would that require me to run the entire graphics pipeline? The server would only handle object updates which are sent to the clients, and as such the physics engine running on the headless server would be the authoritative engine.

Alternatively i am evaluating using physx-js as the serveer-side physics engine, but I suspect this may not provide adequate enough results when the clients run on Havok.

Can you advise?
Thank you in advance!

2

NullEngine and Havok Physics run, as far as I know, the same whether you’re running in the browser or a Node environment. Just make sure to run all game logic and physics in a fixed timestep.
Depending on your type of game, you can just call scene.render() on your server which takes care of everything internally, or you can manually step the physics, advance animations, calculate mesh transforms etc. etc. as needed

I’m running Havok on both client and server, and so far it’s behaving as expected

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My server obviously will not include any type of graphical output, so actually rendering any graphics would be unnecessary and a drain on resources.

If you’re saying it is possible to do this in Babylon.js, I will look into it.

Edit: I got wise and looked up NullEngine. I don’t have time to dive into it now, but a cursory glance seems to confirm it’s what I need. Thank you!

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Is it able to utilize simd on the server?

5

This is something I haven’t tested or researched

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