Posts Tagged il2cpp

How IL2CPP implements lock, volatile, [ThreadStatic], and Interlocked

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Writing multi-threaded code is one of the keys to maximizing performance. Currently, this means creating your own threads and synchronizing them with C# keywords like lock and volatile as well as .NET classes like [ThreadStatic] and Interlocked. Today we’ll take a look at how these are implemented behind the scenes by IL2CPP to get some understanding of what we’re really telling the computer to do when we use them.

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IL2CPP Output: readonly, sizeof, IntPtr, typeof, GetType

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Today’s article looks at the IL2CPP and C++ compiler output for a variety of C# language features. Do you want to know what happens when you use them? Read on to find out!

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Common Functions That IL2CPP Slows Down

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IL2CPP can really slow our code down sometimes, and not just for esoteric features. Calling common math and string functions can be dramatically slower in IL2CPP. Today’s article shows you how you can work around this to speed them back up.

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How to See What C# Turns Into

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I’ve been writing a lot recently about the C++ and assembly that C# code turns into when it’s run through IL2CPP and a C++ compiler. Today’s article shows you the steps so that you can see what your own game’s C# code turns into.

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Loops in IL2CPP

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There are many permutations of loops we can write, but what do they compile to? We should know the consequences of using an array versus a List<T>, for versus foreach, caching Length, and other factors. So today’s article dives into the C++ code that IL2CPP outputs when we write these various types of loops to examine the differences. We’ll even go further and look at the ARM assembly that the C++ compiles to and really find out how much overhead our choices are costing us.

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IL2CPP Output: Abstract Classes, Sealed Classes, and Delegates

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This week we continue to look at the C++ that IL2CPP outputs for C# to get a better understanding of what our C# is really doing. Today we’ll look at how abstract methods work, whether casting of sealed classes is faster than non-sealed classes, and what happens when creating a delegate.

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Three More IL2CPP Surprises

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The story usually has three parts. First, find the highest CPU cost functions in a profiler. Second, look at the corresponding C++ code that IL2CPP generated from C#. Third, stop using more parts of C#. Today’s article explores some more IL2CPP output and discovers some more areas of C# that are shockingly expensive to use.

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Three IL2CPP Optimizations

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This week we’ll take a break from the C++ Scripting series to explore three optimizations we can make to our C# code so that IL2CPP generates faster C++ code for us. We’ll cover three areas that yield big speedups: casting, array bounds checking, and null checking.

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Getting the Size of a Struct at Compile Time

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I continue to learn a lot by reading the C++ code that IL2CPP outputs. Like reading decompiled code, it gives some insight into what what Unity’s build process is doing with the C# we give it. This week I learned that sizeof(MyStruct) isn’t a compile-time constant like it is in C++. Because of that, IL2CPP generates some less-than-ideal C++ code every time you use it. Today’s article shows the process I went through to work around that issue and ends up with some code you can drop into your project to avoid the problem.

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Three Surprises I Encountered While Reading IL2CPP Output

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We code in C#, but that’s just a starting point. Our C# code is compiled to DLLs and then converted into C++ where it’s compiled again to machine code. The good news is that this isn’t a black box! I’ve recently been reading through the C++ code that IL2CPP outputs and learning quite a lot. Today’s article is about some of the surprises that I encountered and how you can change your C# code to avoid some nasty pitfalls.

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