Selective Acknowledgement
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What is Selective Acknowledgement?
Selective Acknowledgement (SACK) is a mechanism introduced in TCP to improve its efficiency in handling packet loss in the network. When TCP detects packet loss, it normally retransmits all packets sent after the lost packet, regardless of whether they were received successfully or not. SACK, however, allows the receiver to acknowledge non-consecutive packets, effectively informing the sender exactly which packets were received successfully and which weren't. By using this mechanism, TCP can selectively retransmit only those packets that were lost, saving bandwidth and improving overall performance.
Free resources to learn Selective Acknowledgement
More in stage 4: TCP vs UDP
Selective Acknowledgement: common questions
Can I learn Selective Acknowledgement in Hindi?
This lesson is written in English. Once you sign in, open it in the interactive course and ask the AI tutor to explain Selective Acknowledgement in Hindi or Hinglish. The tutor answers from this lesson’s own text, so it stays on the syllabus, and it runs on your own Google, OpenAI or Anthropic key.
Is this Selective Acknowledgement tutorial for beginners?
It is lesson 29 of 156 in the free Server Side Game Developer roadmap, in stage 4, TCP vs UDP. If you are new to Server Side Game Developer, start from stage 1 and come back here in order; if you already know the earlier stages, this lesson stands on its own.