RE: [Algorithms] memory allocation on consoles

[Jamie F. <jfo...@re...>]

We do mostly evil hardcoded allocation (have preallocated arrays and use,
etc.)

Jamie


-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Hook [mailto:bw...@wk...]
Sent: 02 July 2001 01:16
To: gda...@li...
Subject: Re: [Algorithms] memory allocation on consoles


At 12:06 PM 7/1/01 -0700, Charles Bloom wrote:
>I'm curious what the wisdom is for memory allocation on consoles
>(or any system where you have a strict absolute memory limit
>and a fixed layout).

I'll let others with actual experience pipe up on this one, but I'm running 
into a similar problem managing AGP memory on some stuff I'm doing.

Originally I was doing a garbage collecting, handle based system that 
allowed me to do compaction and what not, but the extra complexity just 
wasn't worth it.  It's easier for me to do a streaming memory manager that 
resets occasionally (yes, it incurs a hitch), and it's significantly more 
robust.

I would imagine that on a console you're going to finely monitor your 
memory access patterns, and will likely control multiple special purpose 
heaps.  I would also imagine that you'd want to do heap resets occasionally 
(e.g. between levels, etc.) to avoid fragmentation (or, alternately, only 
have fixed sized special purpose allocation blocks that are easy to
shuffle).

Because you're working with a fixed memory footprint and with known data 
sizes, you can probably get away with a lot more hardcoded regions and do 
very app specific allocations.  I would daresay that this is flat out a 
necessity on a console.

Brian Hook



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