There may already be an article pertaining to this somewhere, if so just point me to it. I'm just wondering, every frame how much CPU time should be spent in each area of the game, such as the physics part, collision detection part, rendering, sounds, networking, etc. I know it will vary depending on what type of game you are making and how well each of those parts have been implemented/optimized, as well as if it's for your own game or a commercial release. Also, I know there's not hard and fast rules for it or anything, I'm just wanting to get some general numbers. Like 20% of the CPU time for the physics each frame, that sort of thing. Lets say I was planning on releasing the next Tony Hawk game, or Counter Strike. What would be a good percentage of CPU time to allocate to each part of the game? Thanks

I think part of that depends on what your engine is doing too, if you had a 2d side scroller doing super physics you'd probaby spend more time doing physics that drawing and collision detection than possibly a totally 3d engine. I'd say get something up a running and do some profiling to see how much time your system spends doing each of them. But that is really more of the optimization side.

Yeah, that's what I figured as well. I'm just doing a report for my prof and he asked me to include some solid numbers in terms of the CPU scheduling, but I'll just put in there that it's all relative to what the rest of your game is doing, and isn't really necessary unless your game is bottlenecking somewhere. Thanks guys :)