Game server update flow#

This topic describes the high-level process for deploying a game image update to the game servers throughout your fleet.

Game image update process

The game server update flow begins with uploading a new game image to your build machine, and ends with allocating new players to game sessions with the new game image version. The following sections describe each step in more detail.

Upload the updated game image to the build machine#

The first step of the update flow is to deploy the new game image to your build machine. Your build machine is a bare metal machine that's dedicated to testing game image updates before you deploy the updates to the mirror network. To perform this process, upload the game image update as a flat file structure to the root directory of the game server on a supported cloud provider, and then use the cloud provider access address with either the API or the Game Server Hosting web interface to pull the contents to your build machine. For details on the exact folder structure to use, contact the Customer support team.

Generate a difference analysis#

After the updated game image is on your build machine, compare the updated game image to the previous game image version by generating a difference analysis. The difference analysis shows you the differences between the two game images, which allows you to review the changes and then decide whether to create an update with only the differences between the two images instead of a full game image update.

Multiple outcomes of a difference analysis

Accept the difference analysis results#

After you create and review the difference analysis, you must accept the difference analysis to create a new image version. The image version can contain a full game image, which includes the files that have remained the same since the last update, or a partial game image, which holds the files that have changed since the previous update.

Upon completion of a new image version, the following actions take place:

• Game Server Hosting propagates the game image update throughout the mirror network, which makes it available in each region where you have capacity.
• Game Server Hosting notifies each of your machines that there is a new game image update and queues installs for them.

Game Server Hosting’s mirror network is a network of machines that host your game image versions in various regions across the world, reducing the time it takes to download the game image to your machines.

Game Server Hosting's mirror network.

Wait until game image has been deployed to machines#

After you have verified that the update has successfully completed, the image begins rolling out. This process can take some time, depending on the size of the image and the number of machines that need to be updated.

Allocate players to game servers#

After the machines receive the update, you can begin allocating players to game sessions with the profile ID that's linked to the game image that you updated.

Allocating players to game sessions.