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Dark GDK / an interesting question (for me)

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matt rochon
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Posted: 9th Jul 2005 06:51
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never having worked in the games industry I was wondering how the mass amounts of data used in games is stored and accessed in game.

is a relational database fast enough? or are there proprietary solutions to these things?

an efficient way of getting at data is essential so any of you pros wanna spill the beans?

i just wanna know what direction to go as developing a simple database would be time consuming but would pay off in the long run.

thanks
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SoulMan
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Posted: 9th Jul 2005 13:14
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Usually it's lists that manages that stuff.
You will probably want to check Gamedev.net or gamasutra. Those will probably have the information you are looking for.
SoulMan

This is as backwards as is This
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IanM
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Posted: 9th Jul 2005 21:52
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Quote: "is a relational database fast enough"


No.

These databases are built to crunch very large load of data efficiently, and so can get away with a relatively large startup times of several seconds while the commands are compiled and executed. There are smaller DB's available, but they still have this lag at startup.

What I'd do : Store what you need immediately in memory. For the stuff that you can't, then find a free data storage system that doesn't force you to give away everything you've written.

*** Coming soon - Network Plug-in - Check my site for info ***
For free Plug-ins and source code http://www.matrix1.demon.co.uk
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matt rochon
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Posted: 10th Jul 2005 03:45
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hmm well the startup time isnt such a big deal if you load the drivers when the program starts up, im just thinking of games like diablo 2 for instance, there was thousands of items which is only a small part of the data. theres got to be an efficient way to get at it. also mmo games have databases where information is gathered from at all times. not knowing how any of these games work i dont know where to start.

i have an idea to put a database manager in a separate thread and have the program make requests for data and pull it out when it is ready... i need to think of a way to synchronize it though because there will be some cases where the data is needed to continue execution. it should be ok because a good relational db has decent query access and if the database is properly normalized and indexed it shouldnt be a huge problem. i really dont know though ive been searching ont he net for articles about this stuff but i cant find anything

maybe just a b+ to a file... im not sure, i just want to figure out how to organize mass amounts of data for a game
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IanM
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Posted: 11th Jul 2005 03:50
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That's not what i mean by startup time. I mean on each individual query you make.

First, the query has to be parsed, then validated against the database dictionary, followed on certain databases by an optimisation phase, then by compilation, before the data collection even starts.

Most gaming systems just store data using an internal engine. Even multiplayer subscription systems don't use relational databases - for example STEAM is based on berkeley DB - indexed file storage, but no SQL in sight.

*** Coming soon - Network Plug-in - Check my site for info ***
For free Plug-ins and source code http://www.matrix1.demon.co.uk
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matt rochon
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Posted: 11th Jul 2005 04:45
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hmm what about something like ldap?
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