Transport Protocol (Layer 4) Benchmark

This is designed to be a generic network protocol benchmark tailored around specific use cases. It will generate some metrics around the performance of various network protocols under a number of simulated scenarios. As with all benchmarks, take all results with a grain of salt.

Metrics to track:

• Latency: 1-way, RTT minimum/maximum/mean
• Throughput: minimum/maximum/mean
• Jitter: mean
• Total number of sent/received packets: For reliable protocols, we expect these to be equivalent

Configurable settings:

• Packet loss - % packets dropped
• Latency - target latency +- thread sleep resolution
• Jitter - delay amount to +- to the target latency

Initially, the tests will place some focus on a fast-paced multiplayer game scenario. e.g. FPS games, realtime simulations, etc.

Last thing to note, I'm going to use Rust's default UDP/TCP implementation for those benchmarks.

Protocols to test

• UDP
• TCP
• RakNet
• Valve GameNetworkingSockets
• Unity Transport Package
• QUIC as implemented by Quinn
• Laminar

Methodology

Each protocol implementation is going to run in a docker container configured using linux's built in Traffic Control (tc) command to simulate unfavorable network conditions. Each test will take place within a single process (multiple threads). The messages themselves will be serialized as JSON to allow for easy inspection. In reality, you would probably want to use something quite a bit more compact.

The follow conditions will be tested using eth0 network interface:

• 60 hertz send/receive rate

Loss

• Pristine
• 10% packet loss
• 25% packet loss
• 50% packet loss

Latency

• 10ms
• 50ms
• 200ms

Jitter

• 0ms
• 10ms
• 50ms

Packet Size

• Less than MTU (~1500 bytes)
• Greater than MTU