5 replies to this topic

[Xanather]

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread. I'm planning to start develop my first "real" game sometime soon, I will be primary targeting the PC because I am using XNA/C#, but maybe later on allow Mac/Linux with the mono platform.

My question is though, how well does the mono platform work on other operating systems? About the same execution times as running on the .net platform, yes/no?

With me porting a previous novice game I made over to Mac OS X successfully with MonoGame and being able to run the game at 60 fps on the Mac (i think) I was impressed. The problem was though is that 10% of the CPU was being used on the Mac, while on windows I would know this sort of game would use hardly 3% (Id have to say though, the speed of the PC CPU/Mac CPU differed greatly).

Question: how fast actually is the mono platform?

all replies appreciated, thanks.

Edited by Xanather, 29 September 2012 - 04:03 AM.

[e‍dd]

Well, first ask yourself why only a few percent of CPU was being used in either case.

It may be because you have vsync enabled and 90-97% of the time your program is waiting on the buffer swap. In this case you have a heck of a lot of head-room on either platform.

[Xanather]

True true. I was just wondering if there *is* any differences in the speed between the two platforms?

[joew]

True true. I was just wondering if there *is* any differences in the speed between the two platforms?

There definitely is but it is really dependant on which platform it is running on, what parts of the framework you are using, etc. For example on Windows I personally have not seen Mono outperform the .Net framework (other than in irrelevant micro benches using things like Mono.SIMD), meanwhile Mono running on Linux can be faster in many cases as there is more than one variable. There used to be a large difference in things like GC before Mono implemented the generational collector, etc. Also for math using something like Mono.SIMD for various problem domains can give better performance the the actual .Net framework considering it is providing an additional feature set.

Edited by Saruman, 29 September 2012 - 04:55 AM.

[e‍dd]

True true. I was just wondering if there *is* any differences in the speed between the two platforms?

Probably, but it doesn't look like you'll notice. Both platforms are under active development, so if anything the gap will probably narrow over time.

[Xanather]

OK, thanks for the replies. I see there are too many variables in this question to be answered clearly (i.e. is it faster/slower).

thanks again! : D (edd/saruman)