You act like I don't know what I'm talking about. All 3d game engines do that. The camera has to be in the scene, or it won't work at all. Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong, but you have to prove that I am wrong.
I'm kinda in a similar boat with my game, but the problem isn't physics calculations like in Beam, the issue is the fact that every npc and part of the massive map are constantly updating (My goal is complete realism, and no cheating. Thus there will be no spawning.) If you do multiplayer this is my advice. I'd have all calculations done on each player's machine (However, anyone with a machine that doesn't meet the recommended could cause issues this way). I'm not an expert on how Beam's physics engine works, but would it be possible to have the positions of the nodes and beams on a server, with each player setting the positions by having the physics for their car running in their computer? I notice that most of the strain (at least on my pc (NOTE: The processor is NOT up to recommended specs, however everything else is at or above recommended specs. ) is caused by the physics engine, so multiplayer is possible, but the physics are only being calculated for ONE car on your machine. I know you don't like having Beam being compared to GTA, but hear me out. With GTA V's online, each NPC is calculated on each player's machine (The one that spawned them). Therefore, all of the NPC calculations would be done on that player's machine. What I'm suggesting is a similar concept. I'm basically saying that each player calculated their own physics, and the nodes and beam's cords are sent to every player's machine, so the car would be rendered on every player's machine. Basically, each machine does the following: Calculates the physics for ONE car, renders the rest of the cars, and renders the environment. Some other advice for the MP. 1: Only let each player spawn 1 car. 2: Each player must be running at at least ____ FPS (I'd probably say 30.), because we don't need people lagging around. If you need anything explained, please ask. I have trouble wording some things.
I can verify what @Funky7Monkey is saying. Every game and engine I've ever used (and made) has to have a camera or viewpoint of some sort. How do you expect it to know what the screen area is meant to be showing without something to determine which part of the scene it's looking at?
You do realise the the dynamic reflections in the game render the game world multiple times as well, its essentially the same as rendering from a different camera view. That is how they are able to render things that you can't directly see in your view port.
@Dr. Death No need to get salty. @Funky7Monkey is sort of right. That's how it should works pretty much. What @VeyronEB said is also right. The dynamic reflections works because of the same system pretty much. (6 cameras pointing each direction) Althought, split-screen is more than just adding cameras, that's just a small part
You kinda also said "whatever helps you sleep at night", which is a dismissive thing to say and implies they're wrong.