Question Optimizing movement for hundreds (1000+) objects

Hello, I am planning to release an Ants Simulator game on Android based on ants' pheromone search. I've optimized the game quite well, but I'm not sure what to do about this snippet of code, which runs every frame for hundreds of ants:
desiredDirection = (desiredDirection + Random.insideUnitCircle * wanderStrength).normalized;

Vector2 desiredVelocity = desiredDirection * maxSpeed;
Vector2 desiredSteeringForce = (desiredVelocity - velocity) * steerStrength;
Vector2 acceleration = Vector2.ClampMagnitude(desiredSteeringForce, steerStrength);

velocity = Vector2.ClampMagnitude(velocity + acceleration * GameInput.simDeltaTime, maxSpeed);
position += velocity * GameInput.simDeltaTime;

zAngle = Mathf.Atan2(velocity.y, velocity.x) * Mathf.Rad2Deg;
transform.SetPositionAndRotation(position, Quaternion.Euler(0, 0, zAngle));

Sebastian Lague actually made this for his Ants project, and I've struggled to come up with anything better. It takes just 0.007 ms per ant per frame to execute, but adds up on Android with hundreds of ants. Would converting monobehaviours to normal classes or using DOTS help in this instance? Thanks for help

 

Mono to plane C# classes, "yes 100%", since Monobehaviours get handled performance intensive by unity, having loads of them is not a good idea, especially in your case.

using the ECS will ofc. help you by alot but you have to rewrite 90% of your game i would gues

 

how does Deep Profiler look in hierarchy view? (whats on the top)

 

The simple way is to have 1 monobehavior act like a manager. Here have a (native) array of your ants and loop through them when needed.
The first step to optimize after that is to use the job system and/or burst to improve performance by quite a bit.

If you need a ton more performance ECS might get you there, but will take a lot more work.

Random idea: If it's just positions, maybe using a compute shader might work as well to run the logic on the GPU?

 

I've already done that

On pc definitely, but would this work on mobile? Thank you for your answer!

 

Yeah, since the game is almost done, it doesn't really make sense to switch to ECS. I guess I'll try to convert this class to plane C#, although it's worth noting that there is only two Unity functions there: Start() and OnDestroy(), but I'm not sure if that changes anything. I don't use Update(), I think that's what counts the most

 

that’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time

 

This is from a deep profile on my pc with 1000 ants. UpdatePosition() takes around 2/3 of all processor power. It's hard to zoom more, but it seems that processor is busy with just vector multiplication, addition and normalization (2/3 of 0.006ms) and then with Atan2, then Euler.(1/3 of 0.006ms).

 

Very cool indeed!

 

I'll try using plain arrays of data in a job. I was thinking about that actually, but didn't do it yet. Thank you! Do jobs work on mobile as well as on a pc?

 

Here is a similar example, but this all happens on the main thread via specific and careful frame counting and control

The map and its iterations can get large, from algae reproduction, continent growth, shift, etc.

Same concept applies. I started threading this beast. But there were some minor design flaws in making a fun strategic game out of it

 

Garbage management* was the key. Large debuff to the frame was painting the half triangle textures. If not filming it then it’s pretty stable fps around 200 or so. Lots of compute happening. Wind zones etc.

 

Seems very interesting! Out of curiosity, what does "frame counting and control" mean?

 

Ok, I'll go in wide! Thank you for your help

 

So it’s just an int that you count and cap and reset to zero, a numerator. You then ask if your CurrentFrame = DesiredNumber and do some logic. You reset your int back to zero when a full revolution of logic is complete

 

Oh, ok, pretty cool! Thanks for the explanation