A Load Simulation and Metrics Framework for Distributed Virtual Reality

We describe a simple load-measure-model method for analyzing the scalability of distributed virtual environments (DVEs). We use a load simulator and three metrics to measure a DVE´s engine with varying numbers of simulated users. Our load simulator logs in as a remote client and plays according to how users played during the conducted user study. Two quality of virtuality metrics, fidelity and consistency, describe the user´s experience in the DVE. One engine performance metric provides the cycle time of the engine´s primary loop. Simulation results (up to 420 users) are discussed.