The process of modifying software to make some part of it work more efficiently or use fewer resources. Generally, this means it executes more rapidly, or will require fewer resources.
4
votes
0answers
228 views
How to generate portal zones?
I'm developing a portal-based scene manager. Basically all it does is to check the portals against the camera frustum, and render their associated portal zones accordingly.
Is there any way my editor ...
6
votes
1answer
771 views
Is the STL efficient enough for mobile devices?
When it comes to mobile game development on iOS and Android NDK, some developers write their own C++ containers, while others claim that STL is more than adequate for mobile game development (For ...
1
vote
2answers
127 views
What calls trigger a new batch?
I am finding my project is starting to show performance degradation and I need to optimize it. The answer to my previous question and this presentation from NVidia have helped greatly in understanding ...
6
votes
2answers
616 views
Correct way to handle path-finding collision matrix
Here is an example of me utilizing path finding. The red grid represents the grid utilized by my A* library to locate a distance. This picture is only an example, currently it is all calculated on ...
2
votes
3answers
1k views
Using SQL for a Realtime Multiplayer Game Server's Working Data (Fast Enough?)
The game I'm working on currently has a Client in Flash AS3, and a Server in C# (multithreaded).
Currently I use mySQL to handle logins (Raw access: no middleman for accessing the database) which ...
3
votes
2answers
846 views
Which opcodes are faster at the CPU level?
In every programming language there are sets of opcodes that are recommended over others. I've tried to list them here, in order of speed.
Bitwise
Integer Addition / Subtraction
Integer ...
2
votes
3answers
895 views
Optimized rendering of a cube mesh world
I want to render a cube-mesh (a.k.a. Minecraft-style) world. If I render each existing cube it will eat up FPS pretty quickly. How can I optimize it? I understand that the point is to not render ...
2
votes
1answer
211 views
Collision Detection Efficiency
I've just written my first successful collision detection code, and it works great for a small scene of actors (player + 4-5 obstacles).
However, I realize that since it checks every possible ...
0
votes
3answers
464 views
Optimizing updating thousands of enemies? (Or break up the enemies that need updated?)
Thanks in advance for wanting to help.
I have an array of (right now) ~1000 enemies that I need to update every frame. The issue, I believe, is mainly brute-force checks. I've profiled my ...
2
votes
2answers
332 views
Dealing with string memory pollution
Consider following example. I have a title screen for a game which displays top scores list, and some other text. The Update method looks like (simplified):
// remove all text
textList.Clear();
// ...
0
votes
2answers
389 views
Detecting if line crosses rectangle in python. Need speed boost
I am currently writing a top down man vs robot shooter. The game works now, but if I have a decent sized level it runs slowly when you are being chased by robots. While just roaming around it can go ...
3
votes
3answers
2k views
Object pools for efficient resource management
How can I avoid using default new() to create each object?
My previous demo had very unpleasant framerate hiccups during dynamic memory allocations (usually, when arrays are resized), and creating ...
1
vote
0answers
322 views
Good practices when optimizing HTML5/Javascript Game Developement [closed]
I'm just starting out as a game developer and have created a few crappy but playable clones of classic games like pong, and bomberman.
Being self taught (bless the internet) I do this by just stuffing ...
4
votes
4answers
971 views
Smoothing found path on grid
I implemented several approaches such as A* and Potential fields for my tower defense game. But I want smooth paths, first I tried to find path on very small grid ( 5x5 pixels per tile) but it is ...
2
votes
3answers
645 views
Coarse Collision Detection in highly dynamic environment
I'm currently working a 3D space game with A LOT of dynamic objects that are all moving (there is pretty much no static environment). I have the collision detection and resolution working just fine, ...
2
votes
2answers
582 views
Which is worst: Too many VertexShader instructions, or FragmentShader instructions?
I want to have a better understanding of how to create shaders with optimal performance and realize where some bottlenecks can occur.
Is it usually favorable (when possible) to delegate most of the ...
0
votes
1answer
88 views
Setting up speedtests in Actionscript 3 for an entire game
I'm very new to this so please forgive the questions possibly ill-stated nature.
Firstly is this even a valid way to speedtest:
public function L1() {
tree.x = 200;
tree.y = 200;
...
0
votes
2answers
310 views
Optimize a render call to draw out several semi-transparent sprites
I'm writing a 2D side-scrolling style game in C++ and openGL. In this game I have several cloud sprites which are rendered across the top of the screen. They rotate and scale and such so they're not ...
10
votes
5answers
1k views
Why do computer games differ so much in size?
There are alot of PC games out there that have (seemingly) roughly the same graphics (with bump-maps, shaders, etc), sound complexity and play-through time yet one of them needs 4GB space while the ...
3
votes
2answers
312 views
Rendering 3D out of layers - optimizing fillrate?
I'm rendering a city of several million cuboids that are all axis-aligned, touching each other and same-sized. They only differ in height.
Rendering them as real geometry is vertex-bound and too ...
3
votes
2answers
714 views
Rendering a lot of Models at once with XNA
In an hexgrid based game, I render all terrain tiles as a separate model, reusing the same texture objects on all similar tiles. The tiles is a pretty simple model.
When the terrain is set to be at ...
2
votes
2answers
2k views
Loading and rendering one large image or many smaller ones
I am working on an android game with a top down style view similar to the original GTA's or a scrolling version of Legend of Zelda.
I have recently begun designing some prototype levels for the game ...
5
votes
2answers
568 views
What are the time-efficiency characteristics of these voxel data structures?
Real-time, high-resolution voxel raycasters tend to use one of the following optimising data structures in order to achieve interactive frame rates. What are the pros and cons to these, and what other ...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
Optimizing HTML5 canvas transformed drawing in Javascript
I am trying to optimize my HTML5 game engine and have noticed that currently a majority of the time taken in the game loop can be taken when drawing transformed tiles. I think this is because each ...
6
votes
1answer
324 views
Display Lists in OpenGL
I heard that there was a faster method of displaying vertices, rather than recreating the GL_TRIANGLES, each time the scene is drawn. I thought I read somewhere that this method was obselete. Why ...
10
votes
1answer
681 views
Is precomputed pathfinding still relevant?
Context
Old Lucas Arts (ScummVM era) point and click graphic adventure games used precomputed pathfinding. Here's a rough outline of the technique.
Step 1
The floor in each room was divided into ...
3
votes
2answers
201 views
What is a fair latency, to cut off game connection at?
I'm currently coding a realtime game. I'm doing alot of technical operations with the physics world (resimulations of old world states etc.) to prevent game lag. I save the world state every physics ...
1
vote
5answers
901 views
OpenGL Performance Questions
This subject, as with any optimisation problem, gets hit on a lot, but I just couldn't find what I (think) I want.
A lot of tutorials, and even SO questions have similar tips; generally covering:
...
6
votes
3answers
535 views
Is Frustum Culling by itself enough for Consoles and Mobiles?
Software occlusion culling is often expensive, especially for smaller and older devices.
Is frustum culling alone adequate on systems that can optimally display 10k triangles at most?
If not, are ...
5
votes
1answer
149 views
Player Visibility Problem
I'm looking into designing and implementing an online RPG (or more accurately, redesigning an existing piece of server software).
One of the problems is that of managing visibility. Update data for ...
13
votes
2answers
1k views
Why are big files better than small files for consoles?
Why do console game developers use large files to store game data instead of small files like on PC? Less streams in memory? Need to access file tree many times? Other reason?
17
votes
5answers
1k views
Learning to optimize with Assembly
I am a second year student of Computer Games Technology. I recently finished my first prototype of my "kind" of own pathfinder (that doesn't use A* instead a geometrical approach/pattern recognition, ...
6
votes
1answer
213 views
How do texture lookups for trig functions work?
I have a pixel shader that calculates a mandelbrot fractal. It uses the standard formula:
z = z2 + c
I'd like to extend it so the power z is raised by varies. To do this i have the following ...
8
votes
1answer
229 views
Chunking/caching large levels in a singleplayer game
Does it make sense to try to offload a large nonlinear level into file-based chunks, and load those on demand? We've implemented level chunking to improve rendering performance, but still all level ...
2
votes
5answers
2k views
Skipping glReadPixels and reading iPhone's “VRAM” directly
I'd like to rapidly capture "screenshots" of my OpenGL ES iPhone game and turn them into a video. I've tried the following approach (it works but degrades the game play to an unacceptable level):
...
6
votes
4answers
698 views
Efficient 2d Java Line of Sight for a lot of entities?
My problem today is this:
I have many civilians going around, they are classes stored by an arraylist.
The idea is when they see another civilian panic, they'll start to panic and it will spread.
...
1
vote
1answer
292 views
Graphic optimization for iPhone
Basically, I am creating a large iPhone game (with an overwhelming amount of 2d graphics).
I am concerned about the game file size.
Since the iPhone game will accept Retina and Normal display, we ...
2
votes
2answers
281 views
How do you handle iPhone graphics for both high and low DPI settings?
How do you guys create your game graphics for iPhone? Considering you need a retina version and a nomal one?
Do you create a big version of your image, save HD, then resize to smaller version, and ...
1
vote
2answers
205 views
Searching a map fewer times
... or better yet, removing the need to search the map altogether.
I'm either looking for suggestions on how to optimize my code, or a change in design.
In my component-based entity system, the ...
13
votes
2answers
6k views
How can I make huge terrains in Unity?
How can I make extremely huge terrains in Unity? It seems like I can set width and length to large values. But the Heightmap resolution only goes up to 4097 and the Detail resolution only goes up to ...
-2
votes
1answer
224 views
Stop rendering to lessen amount of resources used?
Also posted on StackOverflow, hope this isn't a problem.
Recently I've been writing a bot for a game which uses a DirectX backend for its rendering. I have managed to 'hack' the game into allowing ...
11
votes
3answers
3k views
Optimizing a mesh for voxel cube landscapes
Playing around with creating minecraftish/lego world landscapes in Unity 3D (procedurally generated voxel landscapes with cubes), I'm finding that the meshes created for these landscapes take up a LOT ...
5
votes
3answers
264 views
Drawing the same mesh or drawing the same material?
I was wondering. Suppose I have a 1000 grass meshes. They all have the same material, but I create them separately, because they look slightly different, because they have different heights.
Does my ...
43
votes
17answers
14k views
C++ low-level optimization tips
Assuming you already have the best-choice algorithm, what low-level solutions can you offer for squeezing the last few drops of sweet sweet frame rate out of C++ code?
It goes without saying that ...
0
votes
4answers
241 views
Are there any resources about performance tweaks?
There are many optimization tricks that you can apply to your C++ code that can help speed up your program, and there are more game-related tweaks poping out every day. For example, I've just heard ...
3
votes
1answer
609 views
Flash AS3 Tower Defense MouseEvents
In my tower defense game and every tile has its own mouse event listener. I am wondering, would it be better to use one event listener (MouseEvent.CLICK) and then when it runs the function, should I ...
21
votes
9answers
4k views
OpenGL optimization tips
What tips or tricks do you have when it comes to making the OpenGL more efficient?
2
votes
2answers
681 views
Was C++ designed for speed, and is it better to not use high level features when teaming with inexperienced programmers?
I have read some optimisation guide for C++, and it seems it requires more knowledge to have a fast C++ code, than using C++ without the high level features of C++ (classes, templates, inheritance, ...
3
votes
2answers
212 views
Naive minmax optimizations
I'm working on a perfect information game in my spare time. I've implemented a naive minmax algorithm for the computer player. I've further optimized it using alpha-beta pruning.
What I'm looking for ...
9
votes
6answers
2k views
Make pygame's frame rate faster
By profiling my game, I see that the vast majority of the execution time of my hobby game is between the blit and the flip calls. Currently, it's only running at around 13fps. My video card is fairly ...
