Guess and Check Method

[Ming-Yan]

Instead of the server sending every location and movement for physics to the clients, you can have it send just what had happened (box hit at X Velocity) and then that is guess by the client.

Do the client (user's) game is what calculates where the box ends up instead of the box's coordinates sent every frame.

The same goes with players. Player X holds "D" X amount of time at X speed, the client will calculate where it ends up.

This method is used a lot in games where you don't have extensive physics (like racing games) and it saves A LOT of messages that get sent from the server and client. Because more work is done on the client's side and not the server, most of what happens doesn't lag.

@Reader:
Things you need to know:
Server: holds the "perfect" instance of the game and sends messages to clients.

Client: The other end (your instance of the game) Attempts to be like the server's instance, sends messages to server so server can send to other clients.