A hybrid distributed virtual environment （DVE） architecture is presented by importing a peer-to-peer （P2P） idea into the traditional client/server （C/S） architecture to improve the DVE system＇s scalability. The mathematical model of the overload of the center server was built and a series of simulation experiments were performed to validate the conclusions. When the client number increases to a certain value, the hybrid architecture can reduce server overload with some special clients （temp servers） selected with a certain heuristic strategy. With this architecture, the DVE system can support more system clients with the same server hardware than the C/S architecture can. The server overload ＂pulse＂ phenomena causing by the exiting of the temp server can be resolved by adopting a more optimized temp server selecting strategy and by reducing the child client capability of the temp server. By combining the advantages of the C/S architecture and the P2P architecture, the hybrid DVE architecture can effectively improve the scalability of the DVE system. This is validated by theoretical analysis and simulation experiments.
