Interest management

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Too much to send

Priya's dashboard shows one Shard Garden world now holding 30 players and 5,000 plants. Each player sees only the corner around them.

Sending every plant to every player wastes data on things nobody can see.

Send what matters

Interest management decides which objects each player receives updates for.

Unity's Netcode, for example, lets a game hide an object from chosen players, and then "no network traffic generated by the hidden NetworkObject will be received" by them. Its documentation shows a distance check as the example.

Quick check

What does interest management decide?

  1. Which objects each player gets updates for
  2. Which players may join
  3. How fast the server ticks
Show the answer

Which objects each player gets updates for

Each player gets the objects that matter to them, usually the ones nearby.

A safety bonus

What the app never receives, a cheat cannot reveal. If a hidden treasure's location is never sent, no hacked app can show it on the map.

Pick the rule

Players spread across a large garden. Which rule should Remy use?

  1. Send objects within view distance, plus a margin
  2. Send everything to everyone
  3. Send only each player's own plants
Show the answer

Send objects within view distance, plus a margin

A player sees what is near them. The margin means plants are already there when the player walks toward them.

Mind the edge

Without a margin, plants pop into view at the edge of the screen. And if the in-range and out-of-range distances are the same, a player standing on the line flickers in and out.

The fix is to start sending a little further out than where sending stops.

Quick check

With interest management, a plant far away still uses data for every player.

Show the answer

False

Far plants are not sent at all, until the player comes close.

Who plays whom

Gardens are friendly. The new weed race mode is not: two players, one winner. Who should face whom?

Bolt says: Next: matchmaking and skill ratings.

Fact-checked 12 October 2026