Re: [pygame] is there a way to optimize this code?

[Hugo Arts <hugo.yoshi@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Ian Mallett<geometrian@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> What I like about the OP's approach, and about the numpy version of it, is
> that it's perfectly scalable to any number of particles.  The program as I
> modified it runs ~30 fps--but it runs about 30fps whether you add random
> particles 8 or 128 times (yes, I tried.  Incredibly dense snowfall piles up
> extremely quickly and is neat to see).  I suspect a approach that keeps
> track of all the particles individually might start out faster and degrade,
> especially if done with unoptimized Python.
>

This is definitely true, however if you keep the amount of snow
particles constant but increase the resolution
you will see big performance hits. There is a classic performance
trade-off, with solution number 1 being independent of the screen
resolution and solution two being independent of the number of
particles. The right approach definitely depends on the use case, and
I think it's definitely worth trying both and comparing them.

It's an interesting example of how different algorithms lead to vastly
different performance characteristics.