BridgeNet2 is a networking library for Roblox with a focus on performance. It cuts out header data from RemoteEvent calls by 7 bytes, which is beneficial because it cuts down on the total number of packets per player. This in turn decreases server bandwidth used, so you can send more data. Games using BridgeNet2 will never hit the RemoteEvent throttle limit. BridgeNet2 also decreases the amount of time to process packets on the client by approximately 75-80%.
Benchmarks
Roblox, with 200 blank remote calls per frame:
BridgeNet2, with 200 blank remote calls a frame:
Full Feature List
Expand to see the full feature list
Significantly faster than the default networking systems in Roblox.
Reduces the overhead of remote calls: client to server takes 5 bytes, server to client takes 2 bytes.
Identifier system to reduce bandwidth usage for static strings, which take 3 or 4 bytes regardless of size.
Utilities for optimization such as FromHex, ToHex.
Customizable rate limiting for all bridges to prevent remote spamming.
Provides middleware for easy typechecking and security implementation.
Internally secure to protect against exploiters.
Queues up remote calls to a player until they are loaded, eliminating the need to worry about the invocation queue/players not being loaded.
Abstracts instances, eliminating the need to use RemoteEvents directly.
Removes the need to consider client/server boundaries when defining bridges using ReferenceBridge.
Hoarcekat compatible
Logging: you can use Bridge.Logging = true for full logging on that specific bridge, which counts remote packet size too.
Installation
You can see the installation steps here.
(do keep in mind the documentation is unfinished and quite outdated, BridgeNet2 is currently on version 1.0.0, you cannot just copy past the wally section.)
I found a bug / I have a question / I’m getting an error
Thank you finally releasing this, was just about to finish writing my framework today until I saw this. Also, is it possible for you to use a module such as GoodSignal to handle your signals? I currently use it for my framework and I really don’t want my syntax to be different. Also just wanted to say that typing for BridgeNet is sort of useless right now:
Theres also no functions like FireAllClients or FireAllClientsExcept
The reason I use my “custom” signal implementation (I say custom because it’s just thread reuse from goodsignal) is because nanosecond improvement (I love seeing the funny number go down, and it’s actually a pretty noticable difference + goodsignal has a few pointless features for me that slow the library down)
As per typings, I’ll investigate that. I likely have an accidental invalid type or something. Will be fixed within the next week or so, although if you have any other issues, lmk. I don’t want to make an entire release to fix one thing
Alright, sounds good! I’ll probably make a PR to add the other fire client functions, and is there a way you can possibly make support for good signal/add once and wait? Thanks!
EDIT: I just noticed there’s only a single function because you can add player types. Cool!
tried to convert my project to bridgenet 2.0, faced many issues
so i compiled a list of missing for you to work on:
the firing to client queue simply doesnt work at all, and the replication for it was bugged
there is no invoke implementation
no :Once connections
a way to only fire to one player, without making a table each time
for now, ill probably move to red as it has more refined features and should work easier
either way my game’s network usage is around 2kbps peak on full load rn (effect calls, move calls, and other stuff) with bridgenet 1.0, so it should lower it even further i hope
great module overall, but just needs some finishing, polishing, and refining
I also want once and wait connections. As said, it would be nice for some API consistency. Invoking really isn’t needed though, would be better to write your own.
I modified BridgeNet2 to make it a little easier for me to use for my framework.
It now has FireAll, FireExcept, and FireTo methods for a Server Bridge and you don’t have to wrap all the arguments you’re passing into a table. I cannot assure its perfect as I just threw it together in a few minutes and the API for BridgeNet2 is a little lacking at the moment.
This is half the point of bridgenet2, there’s a reason I did this and it is because you lose a crazy amount of performance. You also lose simplicity, the ability to easily pass nil, and a lot more.
Please release the documentation for this as soon as possible as I want to get started with it for my new game. For the time being, I will try to understand usage through function names but documentation would be lovely!
Thank you for putting time into making this module, I plan on using it for all of my own projects as it is amazing.
im unsure how to replicate it, just firing to client was doing nothing at all, and there was 0 implementation in the client bridge of it working, itd just not fire the callback. i think its a keying issue, so check how you add things to the client control tables and how callbacks are called.
the implementation was exactly the same as the one you use in your benchmark
yeah, but it’d be nicer and a lot more streamlined if it was built into the module
once connections just makes life simple, would be nicer inbuilt into the module
neat
i think its better for you to implement features like this into the module, as it saves people from having to update their edits to the module every single update to accommodate for your changes, and is probably easier for you than it is for us - considering you wrote the networker you know all the ins and outs.
great module, just unfinished, once you finish this, i guarantee itll be a game changer
Just because I was curious, I ran a test that would run a function that returned a tuple 10,000 times, and a function that just printed a table 10,000 times. Here’s what I got:
