Single-Window Simulation for Multiple Clients

Issue
Currently, as a developer, it is hard to simulate a server w/ clients in studio. If you are simulating vast numbers of players, you end up with many windows and this can easily clutter the screen as they do not appear at the same time. Especially with a single monitor, it can get out of hand. Having multiple monitors like I do does help the issue, but it’s still fairly overwhelming. Plus, if the game has music, every client will play every sound at the same time, meaning you have to go and mute all the other clients. Having a window for every client may also put strain on the computer as it has to render and calculate every client at once.

Solution
I propose a dropdown list at the top of the client’s window that allows you to have one window but access to all clients. It would look the same as the current dropdown when selecting players:

PlayerListSimulation

But would say “Player1”, “Player2”, “Player3” etc. instead of 1 Player, 2 Player…

When you select a player from the list, the current client you are controlling will be unloaded and you will take control of the client you selected instead.

Benefits
This would improve the development experience as you only control one client at a time anyway and it would make the simulation much easier to handle. Only 2 windows would appear (Server and Client) and it would make a) the simulation start faster and b) less strain on your PC with only 1 client to render at a time. Also, you wouldn’t have to mute every window and minimize all the windows that slowly appear on your screen.

Also, this could be a setting in Studio if people preferred to use the old method with multiple windows, but either way I feel this could be a useful feature for Client Simulation.

22 Likes

I’d love this. Also I’d want the ability to resize/position different clients inside the main studio window.

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