If your Unreal Engine application is a multiplayer game or a shared world, it needs a dedicated server: the program all the players connect to. Eagle 3D Streaming hosts it for you, starts it when it is needed and connects every player to it automatically — free for non-commercial use. You upload the server next to the game; there is no server to rent, configure or keep running yourself.
In everyday IT, a "dedicated server" is a machine reserved for one customer. In Unreal Engine — and on this page — it means something else: the server side of a multiplayer game. Epic Games uses the term for a build of your project that has no graphics and no player of its own. It only runs the shared world and serves the players who connect to it. It is "dedicated" because serving the players is all it does.
So a multiplayer application is two builds from the same project: the game, which each player streams in their browser, and the dedicated server, which they all connect to. "Multiplayer server" and "dedicated server" mean the same thing in this documentation.
| Without a host | On Eagle 3D Streaming |
|---|---|
| Rent a server, open ports, keep it patched and running | Upload the server build once, next to the game |
| Start a server before anyone can play | The server is started for you when it is needed |
| Tell every player an IP address and port to type in | Players join automatically with the Multiplayer Server Scaling plugin — including from a phone browser |
| More players means setting up more servers by hand | Servers are created on demand, and each client is handed its own server's address |
What it costs. Hosting the dedicated server is free for non-commercial use. The players' streaming sessions are counted like those of any other application — see plans and billing, or ask support if your plan needs confirming.
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