Programming Languages for Game Servers

Master high-performance languages for real-time game server development.

Language Comparison

Language	Performance	Memory	Concurrency	Use Case
C++	Highest	Manual	Threads	AAA, FPS
Rust	High	Safe	Async	New projects
Go	High	GC	Goroutines	Microservices
C#	Medium	GC	Async	Unity, casual
Java	Medium	GC	Threads	MMO

C++ Game Server

#include <boost/asio.hpp>

class GameServer {
public:
    GameServer(boost::asio::io_context& io, short port)
        : acceptor_(io, tcp::endpoint(tcp::v4(), port)) {
        start_accept();
    }

private:
    void start_accept() {
        auto socket = std::make_shared<tcp::socket>(acceptor_.get_executor());
        acceptor_.async_accept(*socket,
            [this, socket](boost::system::error_code ec) {
                if (!ec) handle_connection(socket);
                start_accept();
            });
    }

    tcp::acceptor acceptor_;
};

Go Server

type GameServer struct {
    players sync.Map
    tick    *time.Ticker
}

func (s *GameServer) handlePlayer(conn net.Conn) {
    defer conn.Close()
    for {
        msg := readMessage(conn)
        go s.processMessage(msg)
    }
}

Rust Server

async fn handle_player(stream: TcpStream) -> Result<()> {
    let (reader, writer) = stream.split();
    loop {
        let msg = read_message(&mut reader).await?;
        let response = process_command(&msg).await;
        write_message(&mut writer, &response).await?;
    }
}

Selection Criteria

Factor	Best Choice
Latency critical	C++, Rust
Rapid development	Go, C#
Team expertise	Match existing
Scalability	Go, Erlang

Troubleshooting

Common Failure Modes

Error	Root Cause	Solution
Memory leak	Manual mgmt	Use RAII/smart ptrs
GC pauses	Allocation	Pool objects
Thread deadlock	Lock order	Lock hierarchy
Segfault	Pointer bug	Use Rust/sanitizers

Debug Checklist

# C++ memory check
valgrind --leak-check=full ./game-server

# Go profiling
go tool pprof http://localhost:6060/debug/pprof/heap

# Rust optimization
cargo build --release

Unit Test Template

TEST(GameServer, AcceptsConnections) {
    GameServer server(8080);
    TcpClient client;
    client.connect("localhost", 8080);
    EXPECT_TRUE(client.isConnected());
}

Resources

• assets/ - Language templates
• references/ - Performance guides