Question

In XNA, I instantiate models like:

protected override void LoadContent()
{
    this.model = this.Game.Content.Load<Model>("Units/Vehicles/Palladium");

    base.LoadContent();
}

I do this in classes like Tank. What I am asking here is that should I instantiate that model instance (load it) for every Tank instance, or should I do it once and assign it to a, say, static property to that Tank class?

I am not sure if tanks instances need all their own instances, but I am also not sure if instantiating new models is pricey or not in terms of performance.

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

From MSDN for the ContentManager.Load generic method:

Return Value

The loaded asset. Repeated calls to
load the same asset will return the
same object instance.

So in essence from your perspective, while the answer is “only load the model once and reuse it across instances”, the ContentManager class handles that for you.