Sockets Net Driver

Introduction

The Sockets Net Driver is a standard Unreal Net Driver designed to work with Valve's Steam Networking Sockets. It has a dependency on Online Subsystem Steam so it will install it and Online Subsystem if missing however that doesn't mean you have to use Online Subsystem if you don't want to.

Addressing

The transport is technically capable of connecting through several different addressing methods including IP:Port however the most common and most valuable is to address via Steam ID.

steam.<SteamID>/<level_name>

The above format is an example of how you would address a target connection using the Open Level node in Unreal's Blueprints

Convert a Hex ID to a Steam ID and use it as an address to connect to

Engine.ini

We leverage the built-in Steam Socket Net Driver which has a dependency on the Online Subsystem Steam plugin. When you enable Steam Sockets plugin (not just Online Subsystem Steam) the related dependencies should also be enabled and will require a restart of the engine.

Once enabled the following ini settings become relevant ... learn more in Unreal's official documentation

Online Subsystem Steam Interface in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.7 Documentation | Epic Developer CommunityEpic Games Developer

[URL]
; This is the Game Port that Steam Game Server will use and by default should be 27017
Port=27017

[SystemSettings]
; Need this to sort out handshake issues with 5.1 and 5.2
net.CurrentHandshakeVersion=2
net.MinHandshakeVersion=2
net.VerifyNetSessionID=0
net.VerifyNetClientID=0

[OnlineSubsystem]
; Let the Online Subsystem know which platform you are working with
DefaultPlatformService=Steam

[OnlineSubsystemSteam]
bEnabled=True
; Should VAC be used, only applies to Steam Game Server
bVACEnabled=True
; Your AppID only used for dev builds and in the editor
SteamDevAppId=480
; The game version ... this is only required if you are going to run a 
; Dedicated Server and have it visible over Steam Game Server browser
GameVersion=1.0.0.0
; Query Port is by default 2017 this is only used by Steam Game Server
GameServerQueryPort=27018
; If using Sessions then you need this set to true, else you can ignore it
bInitServerOnClient=true

[/Script/Engine.GameEngine]
; Clear existing definitions
!NetDriverDefinitions=ClearArray
; Add the Steam Sockets Net Driver
+NetDriverDefinitions=(DefName="GameNetDriver",DriverClassName="/Script/SteamSockets.SteamSocketsNetDriver",DriverClassNameFallback="/Script/SteamSockets.SteamNetSocketsNetDriver")

[/Script/OnlineSubsystemSteam.SteamNetDriver]
; Set the Connection class name for the net driver
NetConnectionClassName="/Scripts/SteamSockets.SteamSocketsNetConnection"