for his help in formatting media files. I would like to thank Benoît Pagé for his input, company and for reviewing my thesis work. I would like to thank Vincent Gabriel-Vallée for his help in producing the polygon storm dataset and providing programming guidance. I would like to thank Kije Sipi Ltd

NVEs. The unstructured P2P system BubbleStorm offers flexible and scalable means and is therefore used as a fundamental base for the developed Pub/Sub system. As the evaluation of the subscription is performed

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) have become increasingly popular in the recent years, particularly in the form of online role-playing games (MMORPGs). These games support up to several ten thousand players interacting in a virtual game world. The current commercially successful games are client-server based, which is feasible for relatively slow role-playing games. Those have modest bandwidth and latency requirements and are paid for by their customers. For MMOGs with higher realtime requirements and/or a smaller number of customers willing to pay, peer-to-peer networking seems to be a serious alternative. This work analyzes the implementation of both a client-server and a peer-to-peer networking model for the prototype shooter game Planet π4. Initially, a survey introduces recent academic approaches to peer-to-peer systems specifically designed for games. Of those, one system is selected for implementation with Planet π4. Planet π4 is improved in several aspects for the purpose of analyzing various network implementations. First, its architecture is restructured and cleaned to allow for an easy replacement of the networking component. Second, its core is modified to work in a completely event-based mode, supporting the execution of the game in an discrete-event-based network simulator. Third, a simple artificial intelligence player is developed for workload generation in large (and possibly simulated) networks. Furthermore, the newly developed transport protocol CUSP is applied for the network implementation, thus the game is the first real application using CUSP. Finally the game Planet π4 is integrated with the CUSP network simulator, allowing to run the whole game in a simulated network without the need for modification of its core components. Kurzfassung Massen-Mehrspieler-Onlinespiele (Massively multiplayer online games; MMOGs) wurden in den vergangenen Jahren zunehmend populär, insbesondere in Form von Online-Rollenspielen (MMORPGs). In

n S o u t h A f r i c a

RECHERCHES Elastographie par ondes de cisaillement