Posted On: Feb 9, 2021
Today, we are excited to announce the general availability (GA) of two Amazon GameLift updates in the Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet. The first is an update to Amazon GameLift FlexMatch, enabling you as a game developer to use the multiplayer matchmaker with any game server solution of your choice. As for the second update, Amazon GameLift now supports AMD instances. An Amazon Web Services managed service, GameLift enables developers such as Metalhead Software, Yager, and Illfonic to deploy, operate, and scale dedicated servers in the cloud for multiplayer games. Whether it’s creating a 200+ player battle royale game with Large Match Support or automatically adapting server capacity with player traffic using Autoscaling, GameLift leverages the power and reliability of Amazon Web Services to provide seamless gameplay experiences for players worldwide.
Update to GameLift FlexMatch
When playing multiplayer games, players expect to enter sessions quickly and exit sessions with a sense of accomplishment. A good matchmaker must group together players based on their attributes, including skill level, playstyle, and latency. Yet, it can take months or even years for developers to build a flexible matchmaker that helps them quickly tune their matchmaking behavior to provide fun, competitive player environments. With this update, GameLift FlexMatch is available to developers regardless of where they host their game, providing developers with:
- High-quality matches, using your own flexible rules. GameLift FlexMatch uses a powerful algorithm to form matches based on a wide range of rulesets you define. You can also optimize match quality by easily updating your rulesets based on your player’s feedback, so you can create matches that provide players a fun, competitive experience.
- No upfront or maintenance costs. Pay for what you use. No more spending precious development time building your own scalable rules-based matchmaker. GameLift FlexMatch is a fully managed matchmaker that uses your ruleset to form matches and scales to meet your player demand.
- Flexibility to place your game sessions anywhere you want. GameLift FlexMatch now works independent of any other GameLift feature, which means you can place the formed matches onto any game server solution you choose, including on-premises.
GameLift now supports AMD instances
Also as part of this update, GameLift provides AMD EPYC™ processor-based instance support, giving you the choice and flexibility of selecting a new instance types that works best for your game, including:
- M5a and R5a instances powered by AMD EPYC™ processors. Instances include m5a.large, m5a.xlarge, m5a.2xlarge, m5a.4xlarge, m5a.8xlarge, m5a.12xlarge, m5a.16xlarge, m5a.24xlarge, r5a.large, r5a.xlarge, r5a.2xlarge, r5a.4xlarge, r5a.8xlarge, r5a.12xlarge, r5a.16xlarge, r5a.24xlarge.
- Up to 10% lower cost over comparable instances. Specifically, the M5a instances deliver leading x86 price-performance through a combination of high-performance processing with up to 10% lower cost over comparable instances.
- More flexibility in adopting GameLift’s low-cost servers. Without modifying your game server code, you can support the same number of players and provide reliable, consistent player experiences, while benefiting from the cost savings.
The GameLift FlexMatch update is available in Amazon Web Services China Beijing Region, operated by Sinnet. New AMD instances are available in Amazon Web Services China Beijing Region, operated by Sinnet. To learn more, check out the GameLift FlexMatch documentation or dive into the GameLift product page.