Question

I was just wondering why c++ ist that powerful and performant for developing games. I wrote a lot of games in c# and delphi, always using the timer component to make objects “move”. Another option for the movement were loops, but they are definitely not performant.

So what technique does c++ use that users can develop performant games?

Answer 1

C++ give you finer grain of control over the actual hardware and bit pushing. For common business needs, a third generation language such as Java or C# is quicker to program and takes worries like pointers and garbage collection off the hands of the developer. This is at a cost of lack of ability to optimize and fine tune how memory and data structures are used.

You can also take a hybrid approach of breaking the game into a higher level language for scripting etc and then “drop” into C++ land for parts that require the speed and optimizations.