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Newcomers DBPro Corner / Having multiple large UDT's

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Sixty Squares
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Posted: 10th May 2007 14:05
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I was just wondering, does having multiple and large UDTs slow a game down? If so I'll try to avoid it. When I say a large UDT I mean a UDT with 50-100 different things in it (not that I've done that yet). Is having a UDT that large a bad idea?

Thanks,
-Sixty Squares

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BatVink
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Posted: 10th May 2007 15:34
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I believe that once compiled, it makes no difference. It's a design thing rather than a runtime consideration.

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Sixty Squares
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Posted: 11th May 2007 01:00
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Thanks BatVink.

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Zergei
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Posted: 11th May 2007 01:06
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What does UDT stand for?

Further on my stuff at...
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Sixty Squares
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Posted: 11th May 2007 01:56
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User Defined Type.

EX:


TYPE Person
Health as integer
Damage as integer
Mana as integer
ENDTYPE

global Player as Person


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Milkman
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Posted: 11th May 2007 02:37
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It does matter if passing it to a function, since all the data needs to be copied over in the process.

Who needs a signature?
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RUCCUS
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Posted: 11th May 2007 18:30
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Milk, wouldnt that only be if you passed the entire variable over using something like a pointer? If you just pass one entry of the UDT into a function, I dont see it getting the entire UDT, just grabbing the value of the entry specified.

Maybe Im wrong...just seems passing the entire variable wouldn't make much sense.


>> Gibble Blops - free, online, playable!
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BatVink
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Posted: 11th May 2007 19:16
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Quote: "It does matter if passing it to a function, since all the data needs to be copied over in the process"


But the alternative would be to specify all values, achieving the same goal but with messier code.

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Benjamin
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Posted: 11th May 2007 19:25
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It depends how DBP handles types. If it simply passes a pointer, then there will be no speed loss.

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Sixty Squares
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Posted: 13th May 2007 15:28
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Thanks all. Hopefully I won't lose too much loading time due to massive types.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 15th May 2007 09:01
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Quote: "If it simply passes a pointer, then there will be no speed loss."


I'm pretty sure thats what it does.


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Zotoaster
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Posted: 15th May 2007 20:20
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If it does that why does it not treat it like a regular variable? If it does treat it like a variable, why can't it handle arrays too?

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BatVink
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Posted: 16th May 2007 15:16 Edited at: 16th May 2007 15:19
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Quote: "If it does treat it like a variable, why can't it handle arrays too?"


Consider this:



Now you have an array of a type containing an array of another type, which itself contains another array. It's only 2 types and syntactically, you would be allowed to write this. But do you want the job of writing the parser to work that mess out?

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Zotoaster
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Posted: 16th May 2007 17:56
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It wouldn't be much of a parser job. Once you can point to the memory location of an array, then you just have to treat it usually.

For your example, you could do MyArray(3).var2(MyArray(8).var1).angle(3)

You:

Get MyArray's location + 3*sizeof(MyType)
Get MyArray's location + 8*sizeof(MyType)
Get the location of var1
Add the data in that location to the register
Get location of var2 (from the first operation) + register value*sizeof(Coords)
Get location of angle + 3*sizeof(float)
Get the value at that location

That's ust worked out on the spot. I don't know if it would be buggy, but it is possible (and this is from a kid who has had no real training on compilers). I don't think it would have been too much extra work, but it would have made a huge difference.

I think their problem is that they just dont treat arrays like they should. I think they are more like linked lists, and that would make it harder to work.

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Code Dragon
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Posted: 16th May 2007 22:59
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Quote: "Get MyArray's location + 3*sizeof(MyType)"


Well, remember sizeof is filled in at compile time and since 3 is a constant it would probably be optimized into MyArray's location + 12 (assuming 32ints)

More specifically, it would look like this:



But I've never coded a compiler either so I could be wrong (I never even wrote an assembly program before, this is just a guess)

Beyond this place there be dragons.
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Zotoaster
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Posted: 16th May 2007 23:05
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Yup, I was just doing it in pseudo-code. Not sure what size MyType would be either heh. Just depends how DB handles it I think. Also, I believe DB has no optimisation.

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Benjamin
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Posted: 19th May 2007 11:15 Edited at: 19th May 2007 13:38
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<Note to self: don't speak to soon.>

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Zotoaster
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Posted: 19th May 2007 13:34
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Quote: "each array you declare is created at runtime"


Hmm, never knew that. I'm guessing that's not the same for all languages right?

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Benjamin
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Posted: 19th May 2007 13:36 Edited at: 19th May 2007 13:39
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Actually, after doing a little more testing I feel I might just be wrong.. I'm not sure, I'll have to continue experimenting.

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