Is reffrencing a huge class better than reffrencing it's elements?

Question

I do know that value types are easier on the GC but reference types don't are not deppendent on the size of a value they represent. So, is the first example more effective?

  public static void UpdateChunk(ref Chunk_Data chunk_Data)
     {
         chunk_Data.meshFilter.mesh = MergeDiffrentMaterials(chunk_Data.combineInstances);
         chunk_Data.meshRenderer.materials = chunk_Data.materials;
     }

 public static void UpdateChunk(ref MeshFilter meshFilter, ref MeshRenderer meshRenderer, CombineInstance[] combineInstances, Material[] materials)
     {
         meshFilter.mesh = MergeDiffrentMaterials(combineInstances);
         meshRenderer.materials = materials;
     }

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by JVene · Jul 20, 2018 at 03:06 AM

Of these two, the first is a little faster and more efficient.

This may be a little more obvious on a language like C++ than it is in C#.

In the first call, a reference is used, so the object isn't copied. The size of the class has no impact on what is happening at the machine level, only a location in memory (a pointer to C++ programmers) is required, though it is called a reference and the technical meaning is unique to C# (it is similar in Java), the means by which this is managed is just a numeric value indicating a location in memory, which is a fixed size and therefore performs the same work no matter what the size of the class.

The second version passes more references, which takes more space and time to complete the call to the function. If these parameters are members of the same class, the first call is faster, but...

The action being performed is on the class itself. I see no reason to make it a static function. This could be a public member function that takes no parameters at all and do the same thing. Everything that is happening involves the Chunk_Data passed by reference, so what is the reason it is made static?

Also, is MergeDifferentMaterials a static function? It may well be best as a public (possibly private) member function for similar reasons.

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IgneousRed · Jul 20, 2018 at 04:31 AM 1

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JVene IgneousRed · Jul 20, 2018 at 09:56 PM 1

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IgneousRed JVene · Jul 21, 2018 at 04:33 AM 0

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Is reffrencing a huge class better than reffrencing it's elements?

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