> Don't allocate when you need fast performance. This is good practice regardless of whether you are using a GC since allocation/deallocation of memory are slow

> Don't allocate when you need fast performance. This is good practice regardless of whether you are using a GC since allocation/deallocation of memory are slow operations (in fact game programmers NEVER allocate during game level execution). > This isn't really hard, you just make sure that while you are performing an animation or within a game level you don't make any allocations. The GC is unlikely to kick in and your performance will be predictable and fast. ARC on the other hand doesn't allow you to do that since ARC instantly deallocates an object you finished working with. I don't understand this. All the strategies one might use to avoid allocations in performance-critical code under GC (pooling resources, or whatever) are also available under ARC. The difference is that if the way I use memory causes performance issues without GC, it will be much more reliably reproducible than with GC.