The quality, efficiency, and speed of running gameplay as a result of several factors in the design and structure of the game and its architecture.
1
vote
2answers
128 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 ...
1
vote
3answers
166 views
Material usage, one per model or per object?
Is it better (memory, time (of developer), space) to use single model that is unwrapped and uses a single material or to break a model down into appropriate bits, each with their own smaller ...
1
vote
3answers
311 views
For the handling of buildings on a tile-based strategy game, what aproach should I use?
On a tile-based game of the strategy genre, which allows the player to place buildings over the terrain tiles, there are multiple approaches that can be taken for handling such situation.
The ones ...
3
votes
1answer
389 views
Can glTexImage2D() use an already existing memory block?
Can I use glTexImage2D() and / or glTexSubImage2D() (or maybe there's some other method I don't know about) with an already existing block of memory, instead of always uploading the changed pixels? I ...
3
votes
2answers
849 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
464 views
std::vector performance for pixel buffers
Doing software 2d pixel buffers, blitting, etc. Someone was telling me there's absolutely no overhead involved in using an std::vector to represent objects, I was wondering if std::vector is indeed a ...
3
votes
0answers
290 views
FPS Drop after upgrading to XCode 4.3
I'm hoping someone else has experienced this and subsequently found a solution as I am about to light my own hair on fire in frustration.
Simply put, I was creating a Cocos2D app using XCode 3.2.6 ...
4
votes
2answers
234 views
What does “kTriangles/s” mean in hardware graphics benchmark reports?
I've looked around and found several sites offering benchmarking statistics for mobile platforms and I've been seeing the unit of measure as "kTriangles/s". Originally I misread this, missing the 'k'; ...
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
1answer
452 views
Multiple buffering in OpenGL on Windows
What is the most common way modern games perform triple buffering ?
What does the SwapBuffers exactly do in terms of OpenGL states ?
Is it possible to perform double and triple buffering ...
1
vote
2answers
209 views
How to track and find entities within radius in realtime game?
What is best approach to implement tracking in real time for, say, 1000 npcs? Every frame update simple a square grid (remove or insert into linked list) and every time check in square radius? I tried ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
Can Flash games packed for iOS and other mobile devices achieve reasonable performance?
I was thinking of developing a game in Flash, as a hobby/educational project.
However, I was hoping I could make it run on a smartphone, but a friend who develops in Flash says that in their ...
3
votes
3answers
200 views
When is it best to load screens in mobile games?
In the develpment of a mobile game, is it a good to load all the screens at the start of the game, or destroy and create new ones during the game? I am doing the second thing, because I suppose that ...
9
votes
2answers
1k views
How should I account for the GC when building games with Unity?
*As far as I know, Unity3D for iOS is based on the Mono runtime and Mono has only generational mark & sweep GC.
This GC system can't avoid GC time which stops game system. Instance pooling can ...
9
votes
1answer
214 views
Efficient solution for multiplayer space partioning?
This question is a little tricky, but I will try to make it clear.
Lets say I am building an online game (not MMO-scale), but that supports as many players as possible, in a authoritative server ...
8
votes
2answers
415 views
Automating XNA Performance Testing?
I was wondering what peoples approaches or thoughts were on automating performance testing in XNA. Currently I am looking at only working in 2d, but that poses many areas where performance can be ...
13
votes
3answers
2k views
Logging library for (c++) games
I know a lot of logging libraries but didn't test a lot of them. (GoogleLog, Pantheios, the coming boost::log library...)
In games, especially in remote multiplayer and multithreaded games, logging ...
5
votes
1answer
229 views
Can I leverage the fact that my scene is often static to improve OpenGL (JOGL) performance?
My scene is drawn based on the location of several (often several million) vertices (kept in VBO's) and a camera. I can easily tell in my code when my scene has changed and when it hasn't. There are ...
2
votes
1answer
235 views
improving speed of 2d ball collision
I am making a game which has many balls bouncing around the screen (around 200-300 balls in a small area). One thing I am trying to do is improve the performance of the collision detection and ...
2
votes
2answers
583 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 ...
4
votes
1answer
1k views
Unity3D GUI - what exactly it does when create controls and check their statuses?
On unity3d website in the manual on this page: http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Components/gui-Controls.html
I found an example of "GUI.changed" function usage(below). And it looks like it ...
9
votes
1answer
363 views
Is it worthwhile to use particle pools in managed languages?
I was going to implement an object pool for my particle system in Java, then I found this on Wikipedia. To rephrase, it says that object pools aren't worth using in managed languages like Java and C#, ...
2
votes
2answers
129 views
A decent design for handling large creation/deletion of random objects?
So I was attempting a 'Hit the X' game (e.g Toss the turtle, spank the monkey) in which an uncontrollable object travels across the screen in hopes of hitting certain objects and avoiding others.
My ...
1
vote
1answer
111 views
Drawback of using multiple bind flags
As far as I understand Direct3D 11 I have to specify certain BindFlags in order to use a resource in a specific stage of the pipeline.
From my experience some combinations are more common like ...
1
vote
4answers
499 views
Import from mesh vs hardcoded vertices performance
Which brings better performance at run-time: a cube imported from a mesh, or a cube made from hardcoded vertices?
Are there limitations to a certain method? Is one of them better architectural-wise?
3
votes
1answer
105 views
Capturing a programs performance
I'm trying to capture the performance of the GPU, CPU, FPS and memory usage on a program I'm currently working with and want to avoid having to write my own performance capture stuff. Does anyone know ...
2
votes
4answers
1k views
Why does using multithreading during my load screen increase my load times? [closed]
OK, I added a loading screen to my game, and in order for the game able to update and show a loading screen and load stuff in the background I came to the concludsion that I needed to host the loading ...
2
votes
1answer
315 views
Can using different vertex-buffers for each vertex-attributes be good in certain scenarios?
Is there scenarios where this is actually good practice? Or does it slow down performance?
Example:
//Vertex format is:
//X, Y, U, V
var myXYs:Vector.<Number> = new <Number>[
-1, -1,
...
11
votes
4answers
1k views
How to continuously find all entities within a radius efficiently?
I have a very large number of entities (units). On each step, each unit needs to know the positions of all units near it (distance is less then given constant R). All units move continuously. This is ...
9
votes
3answers
2k views
Why does OpenGL >= 3 only allow VBOs?
I see that OpenGL versions 3 and up eliminate the use of client-side rendering. Immediate mode has been eliminated, and vertex arrays seem to be deprecated. Instead, if I understand correctly, VBOs ...
0
votes
0answers
65 views
What are the responsibilities of a game engine, and which of these things need to especially be efficient? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What should a game engine do?
What are the usual responsibilities of a game engine, and which of these things especially need to be efficient (performance-wise)?
Can I ...
0
votes
0answers
93 views
Drawbacks for using only quads for model geometry [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Why do game engines convert models to triangles compared to keeping it as four side polygon
What are the main drawbacks for using "only" quads for model geometry?
Does ...
10
votes
1answer
683 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 ...
1
vote
5answers
903 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:
...
2
votes
1answer
519 views
Moving a big set of box2d bodies in an iOS endless side-scroller game (such as Canabalt)
I am working on an iOS endless-running game (Robot Unicorn, Canabalt, etc). I'm using box2d for the Physics and Collision Checking and cocos2d for graphics.
To achieve the notion of an endless level, ...
2
votes
1answer
489 views
Drawing a textured triangle with CPU instead of GPU
I understand the benefits of GPU rendering and such, but for a certain limited application I need to render textured triangles purely using CPU.
I've built a 3D engine capable of object handling, ...
6
votes
3answers
414 views
How often to save player's state in persistent online games?
In online games, people prefer to log on and off whenever they want. Usually, their game achievements are seamlessly saved, on the server. That is not that difficult to achieve, but I am wondering how ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
How to efficiently store and display a tile map on the web?
About
These are actually two questions in one. First of all I am looking for a way to efficiently store large amounts of tile data. The other aspect deals with querying the data set and displaying ...
0
votes
1answer
239 views
What early design decisions are important for creating “performant” multiplayer games?
I want to create online games and focus on the performance from the beginning.
I searched on the internet, but didn't find any an particular answer concerning the design level or development level ...
3
votes
1answer
758 views
How many moves to think ahead for chess minimax AI?
I am thinking of making a chess game, and I read up on minimax trees. How many moves should the AI think ahead so that the player doesn't have to wait a long time?
If there are 25 possible moves ...
3
votes
2answers
375 views
How to increase update speed of game?
I have a basic game, in which the player moves the environment around the screen, to give the gamer an impression that the player is actually moving.
I want this game to be large and have an open ...
6
votes
2answers
3k views
How to handle multiplayer in JavaScript?
I'm just doing a bit of research into tech to use for a mobile multi-player game.
It's more an experiment at present so for the moment, the only thing that Players need to be aware of is the other ...
11
votes
2answers
865 views
Multiplayer FPS server side performance
This is related to MMO Performance except that question is about bandwidth. This is about cpu load.
I put together a simple FPS using node.js and webGL. It's extremely simple, a lot like the ...
7
votes
3answers
1k views
Better Way To Set Up an Event System
Event Systems are amazing, they make extremely unwieldy code tame and really allow for dynamic creation of games through easy communication of objects and the game loop. I am having a hard time with ...
3
votes
2answers
806 views
XNA game randomly drops to 40fps
I have a fairly straight forward 2D game written in XNA. I'm finding that it arbitrarily drops from 60fps to 40fps.
I've tested this drop extensively and have concluded it's not related to graphics ...
5
votes
5answers
917 views
Path planning for volumes in games
How would you path plan a volume for a game?
For example a 1 km cube with tunnels and caverns. Also the terrain is destructible.
You have walking and flying modes.
I would separate it into phases. ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
Why do games run so much better in Windows than in OSX?
For example, on my Mac Mini with Bootcamp, Team Fortress 2 runs at about 20fps in OSX and 80fps in Windows. This seems to be a common case. Why is this?
0
votes
1answer
285 views
Game (X-Plane) boot/startup time / performance
I use X-Plane for my question but it also concerns probably every other flight-simulator or simulation game in general. When developing a plugin what bothers me most is the startup-time of the ...
8
votes
4answers
2k views
Which Database (RDBMS vs NoSQL vs BOTH) to use for a Realtime Multiplayer Game?
I'm working on a realtime multiplayer game that will require a database (for features such as player profiles, friends, unlocks, news, etc.) This is a standard PC game (not browser-based) and will use ...
6
votes
1answer
637 views
How many shadow casting lights are in modern games?
I'd like to know how many shadow casting lights are supported in modern games, such as Uncharted 2, Crysis 2, Modern Warfare 2, Halo: Reach, etc. Do they all limit themselves to just a couple of ...
