[Arelius]

Since the entire thing was hot-loadable, how was the game linked, did every function call go through a indirection, or did you potentially re-link the entire program if the new function couldn't fit at the address of the old one?

[kayamon]

> did every function call go through a indirection

Yes.

[Arelius]

I wonder if that would still be an acceptable trade-off with high-performance games on modern memory architectures.

[kayamon]

My suspicion is "yes" -- the PS2 wasn't great at memory access, and modern CPU tend to have better caching/branch prediction anyway.

[sedachv]

No need to wonder. That is exactly how C++ vtables work.

[fla]

For virtual functions. Not all calls get an indirection. At least with any respectable compiler..

[sedachv]

Right, and how many game developers are recommending to "never use virtual functions because they are slow" in 2017? I remember seeing statements like that in Usenet posts and articles from the 1990s.

[Arelius]

Also, "never use virtual functions" is very different than "don't use virtual functions everywhere" Common wisdom is that virtual function usage in hot loops can become problematic.

[anewhnaccount]

https://shaneenishry.com/blog/2014/12/27/misconceptions-of-c... is from 2014. I tend to think it might actually make a difference in this case given it's a vtable indirection for every entity every frame (or for every subsystem * every subsystem tick).

[Arelius]

Yeah, and in C++ one also avoids vtables when possible.