Status on Precise GC

[Adam Wilson]

On Sat, 08 Sep 2012 05:47:23 -0700, Alex Rønne Petersen <alex at lycus.org>  
wrote:

> On 08-09-2012 08:44, Benjamin Thaut wrote:
>> Am 08.09.2012 03:56, schrieb Tyler Jameson Little:
>>> This issue on bugzilla hasn't been updated since July 2011, but
>>> it's assigned to Sean Kelly:
>>> http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3463
>>>
>>> I've found these threads concerning a precise GC:
>>>
>>> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/learn/Regarding_the_more_precise_GC_35038.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/How_can_I_properly_import_functions_from_gcx_in_object.di_171815.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Is this issue obsolete, or is it being worked on?
>>>
>>> Reason being, I'm writing a game in D and I plan to write it in
>>> nearly 100% D (with the exception being OpenGL libraries and the
>>> like), but I know I'll run into problems with the GC eventually.
>>> If this is an active project that may get finished in the
>>> relative near term (less than a year), then I'd feel comfortable
>>> knowing that eventually problems may go away.
>>>
>>> I want to eventually make this work with ARM (Raspberry PI &
>>> cubieboard), and the GC is a major blocker here (well, and a
>>> cross-compiler, but I'll work that out when I get there).
>>>
>>> I'm using dmd atm if that matters.
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> Jameson
>>
>> About a year ago I have been at the same point then you are now, and
>> afterwars I tell you that you should write your project without a GC
>> from the start. See my article about this:
>> http://3d.benjamin-thaut.de/?p=20
>>
>> GCs are usually not very good for games, unless you have a concurrent
>> generational incremental non stop the world GC like .Net 4 (Which they
>> created only for XNA 4)
>>
>> Kind Regards
>> Benjamin Thaut
>
> You can't be incremental /and/ concurrent non-STW.

In .NET Gen 2 is collected concurrently. They don't collect Gen 0 and Gen  
1 because "they finish very fast". They do have a heavily threaded STW  
collector for server usage.

.NET 4 GC: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee787088.aspx

-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
Project Coordinator
The Horizon Project
http://www.thehorizonproject.org/