[Scummvm-devel] Dynamic Plugins (uncached) - optimization

[Johannes Schickel]

On 01/25/2014 09:57 PM, sunmax at libero.it wrote:
> Hi Johannes,
>
>>> Right now it's only possible to generate one on the fly by loading all
>>> plugins one after another (on startup). Hardcoding such a list would
>>> again increase the maintance overhead (by introducing redundancy).
> Doesn't configure generate a "plugin table" now which is included in one of
> the cpp already ?

That is only used for statically linked plugins. It's used to hook them up.

> The table and matches would be so simple (as it doesn't require updates unless
> we add new engines or supported game for an engine), that I can't imagine it
> adding more of a few minutes overhead per release. It it's automatically
> generated at configure, not even that ;-)

It's not only about time but also about that it needs to be kept up to 
date and not forgotten. But we can work on some automatic approach in 
case we need it.

>>> Do you have any measurements on the boot times between cached and
>>> uncached builds?
> Yes. Boot 15s (uncached) vs 1m40s (cached) on my PS2.
>
> Even static (all plugins statically linked, which has been the default so far
> for PS2 release) is much faster than cached, just 40s.

This makes me wonder: Is this an issue for other ports using our ELF 
loader? I think the PSP and Wii use this one too and I cannot remember 
reports on that slow detection times there. Did you try to investigate 
why plugin loading is that slow on the PS2?

// Johannes