Timer v ienumerator

Which is more efficient for a simple "time out"?
A: Setting up a simple timer that subtracts by delta time
B: An ienumerator with a yield statement.
I always use a timer because it's what I've always done, but now I'm trying to learn efficiency in my coding rather than just using whatever I know that works.

 

timer, mainly due to garbage creation (ienumerator). If youre re-using your enumerator, not sure.

im a fan of invoke as an alternative.

 

I'm a big fan of the IEnumerator because you're stating intent rather than implementation. If garbage collection is an issue, then I'd find a better way to state intent.

 

Coroutines are more efficient despite garbage creation; Update needs to be called via reflection which is relatively slow. However Invoke is the most efficient, but also the most limited.

--Eric

 

Invoke is a new one to me. I'll read up on it. Thanks! Every millisecond counts on mobile!

 

Wouldnt the garbage degrade performance if you're doing it a lot? Creating the garbage isnt a big deal... removing it has never been free.

 

If you're doing it "a lot" I'd consider rolling a custom solution that fits a project's specific needs.

How much/often do you need to use this?
.

 

probably redundant if you reuse your ienumerator properly.. if you were doing it alot, I would tend to use InvokeRepeating.

 

By "a lot" I was more referring to the number of objects doing it, rather than how often an individual object repeats it.

 

I have maybe 10 scripts with timers set up that I was thinking of changing to something more efficient. A couple of them have multiple timers per script. Both my player and the enemies have various timers for attacks so there can be a couple dozen in a scene, depending on how many randomly spawn. And it's for mobile if that makes a difference - which I'm sure it does.