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New Picture Hunt Silverlight Socket Sample

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Introducing “Picture Hunt”, the newest Silverlight sample app.  This multiplayer game demonstrates the power of the System.Net Socket API inside a browser.  No more long-polls, or trying to turn HTML requests into something that’s almost a socket; you can use sockets directly!  The sample is also a “good network citizen”.  It shows the network status nicely, without any irritating pop-ups; it automatically tries to reconnect, and it will automatically switch networks as needed.

PictureHunt

Check out the Powerpoint deck that goes into detail about the demo and complete source code for the whole demo, including the game server, pictures, and the Silverlight Policy server.

The sample is on Silverlight TV!  An earlier version of the game (without the fancy animations) is on Silverlight TV on Channel 9 on MSDN.  The discussion includes when to use sockets (answer: when you need to send and receive any time, not just when you’re polling, or when you need to match an existing protocol, or when you need to reduce your server resources), plus tips on how to get started, and common issues with network programming.

Enjoy!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 08, 2011
    Thanks so much for this - it was extremely helpful, and helped me solve a problem I'd been struggling with for days! Just wondering, any chance you (or someone else) could post something about hosting a socket service on Windows Azure? This seems to have special requirements, so it would be good to get some ideas on how to do this. Thanks again!