Games Programming (Advanced threading)

[Napivo1972]

I screwed up majorly when writing my program.... never envisioned I would need threading while updating...

But having like 2000 objects needing Updating, collision detection and AI, no computer can handle this on a single thread.

In essence my program implements a GameObject that is iUpdatable, iDrawable and contains an iSprite.

iUpdateble only contains one function

Update();

iDrawable only contains one function

iSpriteInfo[] GetSprites() //I just do this as I have other classes derived from iDrawable Like CompositeSprite and Spriteanimation

and then we have iSpriteInfo

  public interface iSpriteInfo
    {
        float X { get; set; }
        float Y { get; set; }

        float Angle { get; set; }

        Vector2 Origin { get; set; }
        float Scale { get; set; }
        float Depth { get; set; }
        Color Color { get; set; }

        Boolean Visible { get; set; }

        Rectangle SourceRectangle { get; set; }
        Rectangle DestinationRectangle { get; set; }
        Rectangle BoundingRectangle { get; }
        Matrix Matrix { get; }
        
        SpriteSheet SpriteSheet { get; set; }
        int SpriteSheetNum { get;}

        Color[] TextureData { get; set; }

        Vector2 GetVector2 { get; }
        Vector3 GetVector3 { get; }
    }

As you can imagine I don't have time for lock conditions while updating and as these objects are accessed by 3 threads (in fact there are hundred or so for hitttesting alone) I have decided to implement BaseReadWriteLock as most data is only changed during updating.

I say most as there is one expensive calculation I don't do during updating. that is Calculating the bounding box and Matrix, Those are calculated on a as needed basis.

And then I run into a major problem. Most of the time it is clear when I need a read lock or when I need a write lock but when I need to go and update my bounding rectangle (which is only done the first time I need it when certain parameters have changed) every thing goes wrong. The RecalcBounding rectangle gets called by every thread blocking my entire application and taking like forever to unblock.

Am I just too stupid?
Anyone have a book recommendation about in-dept threading?

I am really stuck as this is only the beginning I need at least 10 000 objects to update, hit test and AI every 60th of a second

Any help appreciated


Napivo