RE: XML was RE: RE: A portable preferences library b ut has nothing to do with them anymore

But I think the point has been missed. The issue here (the reason I entered
this discussion) was that not only the data format was (imo) bad (text file
not parsed) but a lot of proccessing goes on with the data. He mentioned
kd-tree generation for example.

Hell, why not just pre-generate the kd-tree and store that into the xml ?
Surely that is a step in the right direction ?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alen Ladavac [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: 16 December 2003 18:54
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: XML was RE: [GD-General] RE: A portable 
> preferences library
> 
> 
> Gareth and Jorrit are going each too far in their own 
> direction. I believe
> that the reality lies in between. Putting everything into 
> platform-specific
> down-to-the-bit-optimized binary data is killing a fly with a 
> cannon, for most
> purposes. The only place where the load peformance matters so 
> much is if you
> want to stream your data during gameplay, and if you need it 
> quickly, so you
> have very little CPU to spend. Other than that, the only 
> thing that you should
> care about is that you are limited by HDD throughput, not by 
> CPU speed. As
> long as your CPU is ahead of the HDD, you are fine.
> 
> What I do is to have a binary format that is universal and 
> that can load any
> kind of objects. It can swap the bytes for endianness, etc. 
> but it knows in
> advance what layout looks like (in endianness neutral 
> format), and doesn't
> have to parse ASCII, let alone generic XML syntax. This is 
> not giving any
> generality away, while still allowing you to keep you loading 
> speed under
> control. I don't know of any platform where the CPU is so 
> slow that it cannot
> perform endianness swapping and such small adjustments while 
> loading. But
> going towards XML might be just a bit of an overkill. I say 
> _might_, not _is_.
> ... because I asked the original question about loading speed 
> plainly because
> I am interested in whether XML can be as efficient as a 
> binary format. I
> belive that it is not very likely, but not impossiible, and I 
> will accept any
> well profiled arguments. While this:
> 
> >In case of CS making such a faster loader
> >really is a HUGE amount of work. We have LOTS of different 
> data to save
> 
> is not something like that. I understand that CS team is not 
> working on a
> budget, and it is great that they do stuff for fun and for 
> others (though back
> when I was doing coding for my own fun, I wanted the results 
> to be perfect as
> well, but thats a different topic). But priorities of CS team 
> _have nothing to
> do_ with XML qualities. If I recall, it was the performance 
> of XML parsers
> that was discussed, not the idea of whether a loader should 
> be fast or not. If
> I say that my loader should be fast, then I guess it should. 
> I was just hoping
> that someone can show me some exact numbers.
> 
> On a side note, this comment that "it is a HUGE ammount of 
> work", is based on
> a wrong assumption. Their problem is that the design was 
> wrong. If they went
> for generic binary format from the start, the work would be 
> near zero. But I
> digress.
> 
> Can you Jorrit please get some more correct profiling data. 
> It doesn't matter
> that your app does preprocessing in-game, it is your choice. 
> But how fast is
> the parser itself?
> 
> Thanks,
> Alen
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "brian sharon" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 16:16
> Subject: Re: XML was RE: [GD-General] RE: A portable 
> preferences library
> 
> 
> > Would you please give it a rest?  In case you haven't 
> noticed there's
> > no "shop" involved for you to return his game to, as he's giving his
> > work away freely.  Jorrit is not doing this as a full-time job.  If
> > load times are not his first priority I can hardly blame 
> him, it's not
> > exactly the "fun" part of the job.
> >
> > Please visit http://crystal.sf.net to get clued in.
> >
> > --brian
> >
> > On Tuesday, December 16, 2003, at 07:59  AM, Gareth Lewin wrote:
> >
> > > Sorry, but you are just wrong.
> > >
> > >>> Lets not ignore the fact that loading bits of the level is
> > >> way easier with a
> > >>> binary specific format that can be dumped directly into data
> > >> structures.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >> Yes but that's not portable. CS has to run on all kinds 
> of operating
> > >> systems and cpu's. We can't
> > >> dump binary structures like that. The endianess wouldn't be
> > >> correct and
> > >> padding can differ
> > >> too.
> > >>
> > >
> > > There is no reason whatsoever for final proccessed data to be
> > > portable. You
> > > have your data in xml. You preprocess it into binary format for a
> > > specific
> > > build/platform. And you use that. Your load times go from 
> 16seconds to
> > > 2 or
> > > 3 seconds.
> > >
> > > And the amount of effort required to implement binary 
> saving off of
> > > structures isn't anywhere near comparable with the effort 
> required to
> > > tweak
> > > the speed of a graphics engine. Not to mention that 16-20 
> second load
> > > times
> > > would have me returning the game to the shop.
> > >
> > >
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