I have read that the send() function on Winsock blocks until the ACK from the last packet is recieved. Now I am playing with a server for a turn based role playing game. Everything is handled by one thread (for 64 sockets). A request is recieved, handled and a response written to the socket(s). This process cannot be interrupted.
Is it possible to handle, say 1000 clients (one thread for every 64 sockets) with this method?
Wouldn't it block the whole server if a send() takes too long to complete or the client maliciously does not send the ACK or the connection gets interrupted?
Shall I split the logic of networking and request handling into 2 threads? If so the thread handling the network transfers could still be blocked by a send() or recv().
Or would it be best to use overlapped I/O?
send() blocks only if the socket is running in blocking mode and the socket's outbound buffer fills up with queued data. If you are managing multiple sockets in the same thread, do not use blocking mode. If one receiver does not read data in a timely maner, it can cause all of the connections on that thread to be affected. Use non-blocking mode instead, then send() will report when a socket has entered a state where blocking would occur, then you can use select() to detect when the socket can accept new data again. A better option is to use overlapped I/O or I/O Completion Ports instead. Submit outbound data to the OS and let the OS handle all of the waiting for you, notifying you when the data has eventually been accepted/sent. Do not submit new data for a given socket until you receive that notification. For scalability to a large number of connections, I/O Completion Ports are generally a better choice.