I believe i have come across some tips before which stated that compiling your code without exception handling enabled can increase performance. Now since i do not use exception handling in my code, i tried it. But i use STL heavily and i suppose STL relies on exception handling which causes the warnings like e:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include\ostream(574): warning C4530: C++ exception handler used, but unwind semantics are not enabled. Specify /EHsc So, 2 things i need to clear up. 1) Is it alright to disable exceptions when compiling my code even though i use STL, and if it is, how do i disable the warnings? Is there something i can define to tell STL to not use exception handling? 2) How do i disable exception handling? I dont know if my method is correct, all i did was disable C++ Exceptions under Code Generation in the Project Settings.

In general, no, if a 3rd party code lib you're using throws exceptions, you can't turn it off in code that uses them. In general, I'd say that the overhead of exceptions is negligible until an exception is thrown. The framework for them takes up a little more space on the stack, but I'm pretty sure that's it.

If you really want to disable exceptions for your tighter loops, you can. In VS, The main problem is that you can't pragma it. It's on a per .cpp file basis. Put the code for your tight loop in a .cpp. You can disable exceptions for that file by right clicking it in your solution explorer, hitting Properties, and setting ConfigurationProperties->C/C++->Code Generation->Enable C++ Exceptions to no.

Let me know if it runs any faster.

Also, as an aside, disabling a warning for something like 4530 is a Very Bad Thing. Never, ever just disable warnings unless you know what happens if you do. In this case, an exception -can- still be thrown. If one is, all hell will break loose, and it will do so intermittently, lol.

Well currently im not doing much, just drawing 1 low poly mesh onscreen. So there is no visible difference. I'll look into it when my application has grown much bigger.