5 ms·

Garbage collection is...

by Arcanum-XIII 14y ago

z3phyr 14y ago
D is garbage collected. So is C#.
- dkersten 14y ago
  Last time I looked, you could turn the D garbage collector off (both completely and temporarily). While Unity uses C#, it still seems to use C/C++ components for graphics and physics and such (going by the libraries it uses internally, anyway) and allows you to call native code if you wish.
  - p0nce 14y ago
    > Last time I looked, you could turn the D garbage collector off (both completely and temporarily). You can, but it's hard to ensure a strict no-allocation policy afterwards (someone did it recently). A moderate amount of allocations each frame is usually ok, and this routinely happens in C++ engines too. In my opinion, it's absolutely possible to make a game with D and GC enabled. It's a bit like not making too much drawcalls in a frame. Eg. for this game I only made one struct pool and that was it: http://www.gamesfrommars.fr/wormhol/ http://www.gamesfrommars.fr/wormhol/
    - dkersten 14y ago
      Sure, you can do pool allocations in, eg, Java too.
- zxcdw 14y ago
  C# sis tied to Microsoft platforms. It's a no-go for anything else. Maybe Rust dethrones C++ one day.
  - ygra 14y ago
    Mono? (Which is used in Unity, by the way)
    - pjmlp 14y ago
      The main problem with Mono is that not the full .NET API is supported by it.
      - WayneDB 14y ago
        The very small list of unsupported APIs are extraneous and unnecessary in the context of cross-platform code. So, what APIs are you referring to, specifically? http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility The big ones are: WCF, WPF, WWF... Guess what the first W in all of those acronyms stand for? Windows. EDIT: It's right there at the top of the page - "Everything in .NET 4.0 except WPF, WWF, and with limited WCF." - I don't see a problem.
      - irahul 14y ago
        > The main problem with Mono is that not the full .NET API is supported by it. http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility I don't see how any of the non-implemented features are going to be blockers for a game engine.
pjmlp 14y ago
Garbage collection is not the main problem, for that you just need to take care not to stress the garbage collector. The main issues are the pauses caused by the JIT and lack of memory layout control, which is very important to take advantage of how caches work. Additionally current JITs, except for Mono, don't explore the set of available vector instructions.

Garbage collection is...

z3phyr 14y ago

D is garbage collected. So is C#.

dkersten 14y ago
Last time I looked, you could turn the D garbage collector off (both completely and temporarily). While Unity uses C#, it still seems to use C/C++ components for graphics and physics and such (going by the libraries it uses internally, anyway) and allows you to call native code if you wish.
- p0nce 14y ago
  > Last time I looked, you could turn the D garbage collector off (both completely and temporarily). You can, but it's hard to ensure a strict no-allocation policy afterwards (someone did it recently). A moderate amount of allocations each frame is usually ok, and this routinely happens in C++ engines too. In my opinion, it's absolutely possible to make a game with D and GC enabled. It's a bit like not making too much drawcalls in a frame. Eg. for this game I only made one struct pool and that was it: http://www.gamesfrommars.fr/wormhol/ http://www.gamesfrommars.fr/wormhol/
  - dkersten 14y ago
    Sure, you can do pool allocations in, eg, Java too.
zxcdw 14y ago
C# sis tied to Microsoft platforms. It's a no-go for anything else. Maybe Rust dethrones C++ one day.
- ygra 14y ago
  Mono? (Which is used in Unity, by the way)
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    The main problem with Mono is that not the full .NET API is supported by it.
    - WayneDB 14y ago
      The very small list of unsupported APIs are extraneous and unnecessary in the context of cross-platform code. So, what APIs are you referring to, specifically? http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility The big ones are: WCF, WPF, WWF... Guess what the first W in all of those acronyms stand for? Windows. EDIT: It's right there at the top of the page - "Everything in .NET 4.0 except WPF, WWF, and with limited WCF." - I don't see a problem.
    - irahul 14y ago
      > The main problem with Mono is that not the full .NET API is supported by it. http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility I don't see how any of the non-implemented features are going to be blockers for a game engine.

pjmlp 14y ago

Garbage collection is not the main problem, for that you just need to take care not to stress the garbage collector. The main issues are the pauses caused by the JIT and lack of memory layout control, which is very important to take advantage of how caches work. Additionally current JITs, except for Mono, don't explore the set of available vector instructions.