"Getting started with Burst" session at Unite Copenhagen 2019

When can we expect Burst to support Nintendo Switch? In our case we're CPU bound and having Burst working on it will definitely help us, even if slightly (we use ECS to do some rendering work in our project).

 

Second that question with Switch support. Also, when will EntityCommandBuffers work with Burst? Maybe give us a list of "What works with Burst, what not", so we can hang on that list. You could also give examples in the talk for it.

 

It would be wonderful to have some tips about proper vectorization and how to make the code more "Burst friendly".

 

I'd be interested if there was some discussion about branching and flow control. There was one time in my C# I was loading four floats with terrible memory alignment into a float4 in an outer loop and doing comparisons in a tight and very hot inner loop, and Burst decided to reload those four floats in every inner loop iteration in the output assembly.

Also, I see a lot of short functions use the AggressiveInlining attribute. Are there situations where that makes a difference for short functions in Burst, or is that just for out-of-burst performance salvaging?

 

How to use the FunctionPointer feature Correctly and what are the limits ?

 

I would be super interested in how to debug code with Burst visually (Debug.DrawLine, DrawRay, Spheres, ....)
I converted quite some code to Jobs, but debugging is a pain. Currently the easiest way seems to be "convert everything back to non-jobs".

The Unity Physics package does some debug drawing, but the setup is like a hundred lines with many ways to break stuff. I thought there would be just a way to say "hey, run this on main thread for debugging so I can draw debug lines", but I have neither found a way to do that nor a way to #ifdef whether something is currently compiled with Burst.

So, long story short, please tell us how to actually debug stuff visually! "How to draw a debug line from a Burst job"

 

I used to write the line endpoints to a native list and then render those as a mesh with line topology - if I recall correctly

 

What are the main algorithms in game development that can benefit the most from Burst?

 

Are there any plans to allow Burst to compile to GPU compute for improved bandwidth on larger data sets?

 

How to get Burst to chain or chunk processing for maximum throughput e.g. Doing 4 SIMD operations in a loop by increasing the loops step rate by 4 and running 4 calculations a loop?

 

Have you considered going over the BurstBenchmarks and optimising them as examples?

Or what would be the best game programming example for Burst optimisation?

 

You may use OpenGL for debugging.
https://github.com/eppz/Unity.Library.eppz.Lines

 

how (if) Burst AOT supports generic jobs and systems, and limitations on that

 

I can't imagine a getting started with burst session without some examples running with and without burst. Also a good idea might be to emphasize that burst can be used for bottlenecks or/and cpu intensive tasks without having to delve into ECS, and is quite useful in MonoBehaviour workflow.

 

Maybe an overview of the SIMD hardware features Burst can take advantage of in different platforms and what they can do.

I'm thinking some kind of graphical table that would be a useful reference for Unity Game developers.

 

+1 With Code examples for cases without ECS

 

How burst and entities in general manage blob and NativeStream. What are best practices to have best performance with this containers

 

I have few questions:

- Burst cross-platform determinism ETA?
- Is Burst 100% deterministic on single platform already?
- Burst outside of jobs coming? ETA?
- AVX support for Burst and double precision math?

 

"How to make inherently hierarchical structures burstable"
Like how to make a octree that uses burst for all of it's features like add, collide with box, etc