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GarageGames Open-Sources Torque Network Library

Announcing the GPL licenses, ‘indie’ and commercial licensing of their award-winning netcode in the stand-alone Torque Network Library.

Eugene, OR April 21, 2004 -- GarageGames has announced that it has released its award-winning network code as the stand-alone, cross-platform Torque Network Library under the GNU General Public License. The Torque Network Library (TNL) is a robust, secure, easy to use cross-platform C++ networking API intended for integration into high performance simulations and games.

“GarageGames has always been a vocal proponent of open source and we’re excited to be able to offer some of our best technology to the world by placing TNL under the GPL,“ comments Jeff Tunnell, President of GarageGames. “We know there are many applications that can benefit by using this very powerful code base.”

Some of the Torque Network Library's features include:

o Robust connection architecture
o Multiple levels of data guarantee
o Bit-level compression for optimal bandwidth utilization
o Server Object replication (ghosting) and management
o Simple and efficient event and RPC (remote procedure call) framework
o Extensible master server framework
o Documentation, tutorials and example code, and full library source code

TNL ships with several example applications, including a full-featured retro space shooter featuring robust networked physics, a simple client/server example application, and a master server for matchmaking and game tracking. TNL makes use of the publicly available libtomcrypt library for cryptographic operations, and GLUT for cross-platform OpenGL setup and rendering in the graphical example applications.

“We know that much of the technology that has been designed to solve specific game development problems can also have very broad applications,” mentions Mark Frohnmayer, GarageGames Founder and Director of Internal Development. “Although many of the features of TNL are specific to low bandwidth replication of simulation objects, its connection architecture could be useful in any networked application.”

Details about the open source TNL project can be found at http://www.opentnl.org. For closed source commercial and independently developed applications and games, alternate licensing options are available from GarageGames. See http://www.garagegames.com/tnl for full licensing details.

About Torque Network Library:
The network architecture in TNL has powered some of the best internet multiplayer action games, including Vivendi´s Award-Winning Starsiege: TRIBES and Tribes 2 products, as well as independently produced titles including Bravetree´s ThinkTanks, 21-6 Production´s Orbz, and the upcoming Mecha title Dark Horizons: Lore.