Introduction To Replication Graph: Reducing Network Bandwidth In UE5

Managing bandwidth is crucial for stable gameplay in networked games. Excessive data can overwhelm weaker connections, degrading the player experience by requiring prioritization and information delay. As you'd expect, this is a big issue in Fortnite, for example, where 100 players per map are involved, leading Epic to develop the Replication Graph as a solution.

While bandwidth is manageable with a few players, it becomes exponentially harder as more clients join, increasing both the data volume and the number of destinations to keep them all in sync. One of the core systems that Unreal Engine provides for handling this problem is Actor Relevancy, a system that will remove an actor from a client's world while they are too far away from the player's view.

The Replication Graph is a feature that can be used to specify more complex rules on what each player should receive. In "fog of war" games, it also helps by ensuring that certain data is unavailable to the client, thereby preventing the risk of cheats like wall hacks.

In his new article, Kieran Newland covers the fundamentals of the Replication Graph, addressing gaps in the Epic documentation, starting with plug-in setup and extending the example to include visibility of other teams if their actors are within line of sight.

There's also a code to accompany this tutorial available on GitHub, free to use and adapt to your needs. Read the article here and check out other Kieran Newland's Unreal Engine network issues-focused tutorials.

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