Question Parallelizing map generation?

Hello!

I'm currently working on a fairly standard 2D map generation algorithm. The map is divided into chunks and generates new chunks infinitely if the player keeps on moving towards the edges.

My issue is that the creation of a chunk halts the game for a fraction of a second. I would like it to smoothly continue, because the chunk creation is triggered early enough so that the player should never walk into an ungenerated chunk. I've never worked with parallel computing, so I started reading about multithreading, and found dozens of pages talking about how poorly Unity handles threads as well as the risks/difficulties. From my understanding I could also use coroutines to split the work into tiny pieces and split it over a quantity of frames, but that seems like it would only fraction the halts into many smaller halts, as the coroutine runs on the main thread.

I also ran into the IJob interface, which appears to be a safe way to multithread. Before delving deeper into the material I wanted to ask for some feedback. Which option would you choose for my situation?

Thanks a lot!
David

 

IJob is the way to go. Get a good grip on the Unity C# Jobs System https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/JobSystem.html

It does some smart things behind the scenes to minimize threading costs. You don't need to use Unity's ECS/DOTS; those are separate but complementary.

If you're looking for more reading, here's a great blog that covers a lot of optimization subjects in Unity: https://www.jacksondunstan.com/?s=jobs

 

Alright, I'll try my hands on that. Thanks for the confirmation and the links!

 

you need to first find what is causing your spike, your math or the generation of your visual graphics

because you can thread your math but you cant thread your visual graphics

and its unlikely that just math will cause your game to spike

you should use coroutines