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Exploring Scheduling Algorithms for Parallel Task Graphs: A Modern Game Engine Case Study

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Euro-Par 2022: Parallel Processing (Euro-Par 2022)

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Abstract

Game engines are at the heart of the design of modern video games. One of their functions is to keep a high frame rate by scheduling the tasks required to generate each frame (image). These tasks are organized in a soft real-time, parallel task graph, which is a scenario very few works have focused on, or adapted scheduling algorithms to. In this paper, we study the scheduling problem of game engines. We model the tasks and the scheduling problem by profiling a commercial game engine, adapt and compare different scheduling algorithms, and propose two additional optimizations regarding the micro-scheduler and the parallelization of targeted tasks.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some frame duration changes fall outside the illustrated range.

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Acknowledgments and Data Availability.

The code used for this study is available online in Figshare [18]. The dataset containing all simulation results and evaluation scripts is available online in Zenodo [19].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, Bordeaux INP, Inria, LaBRI, 5800, Talence, France

    Mustapha Regragui, Baptiste Coye, Laércio L. Pilla, Raymond Namyst & Denis Barthou

  2. Ubisoft Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France

    Baptiste Coye

Authors
  1. Mustapha Regragui
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  2. Baptiste Coye
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  3. Laércio L. Pilla
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  4. Raymond Namyst
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  5. Denis Barthou
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laércio L. Pilla .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    José Cano

  2. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Phil Trinder

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Regragui, M., Coye, B., Pilla, L.L., Namyst, R., Barthou, D. (2022). Exploring Scheduling Algorithms for Parallel Task Graphs: A Modern Game Engine Case Study. In: Cano, J., Trinder, P. (eds) Euro-Par 2022: Parallel Processing. Euro-Par 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13440. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12597-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12597-3_7

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-12597-3

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