From 7f13b0abaa76a5e90674d5733f8162f02ceab693 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Aaditya Dhruv Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:22:27 -0600 Subject: Rework chunk rendering to get a 100x performance boost! - Switching to semi-chunk mesh rendering just 100x the framerate, it was running at around 100fps for 3 CHUNK_DISTANCE, and pushing it above would make it drop to 30. Now it runs at 9000 frames per second with CHUNK_DISTANCE of 8, probably can push it even more - What is bizarre is this is just from the reduction in draw calls, I still need to implement face culling for invisible blocks (simple) and frustrum culling (using AABB) or maybe octrees - Block is way way more simplifed, it's just metadata about a coordinate in the chunk block array - All rendering and mesh generation code is handled by chunks. There is a VAO, single VBO and EBO for each chunk. The data buffer is loaded into the GPU with a chunk_load, and it stays like that until it is loaded again. chunk_load is called if we move chunks, in engine_update. Here we unload existing chunks, then load the new ones --- src/chunk.h | 27 ++++++++++++++++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) (limited to 'src/chunk.h') diff --git a/src/chunk.h b/src/chunk.h index d49ba80..12fa111 100644 --- a/src/chunk.h +++ b/src/chunk.h @@ -1,8 +1,11 @@ #pragma once #include "block.h" +#include "cglm/types.h" +#include "shader.h" #include "texture.h" #include "world.h" #include +#include #define CHUNK_WIDTH 16 #define CHUNK_LENGTH 16 #define CHUNK_HEIGHT 128 @@ -17,11 +20,21 @@ enum biome { // World.c compiles -> includes world.h -> first line is include chunk.h -> struct world // is used here, which messes it up. Forward declare to avoid errors struct world; +/** + * A chunk is the "basic" rendering unit used - it will allocate buffers for all blocks in a chunk, hide covered faces of blocks, generate a chunk mesh and dispatch that buffer data to the GPU + * + */ struct chunk { struct block* blocks[CHUNK_WIDTH][CHUNK_LENGTH][CHUNK_HEIGHT]; + GLuint _vao; + GLuint _vbo; + GLuint _ebo; + int vertex_count; + mat4 model; enum biome biome; vec2 coord; int loaded; + int dirty; }; /** @@ -35,19 +48,27 @@ int chunk_gen(struct world* wld, vec2 coord, struct chunk** chunk); * it's local coordinate system. We want to load this particular chunk to a * location in WORLD coordinates, which is what coord is. This vec2 will be * used to translate the blocks that constitute the chunk + * + * The chunk will allocate a VAO/VBO/EBO buffer to render the chunk mesh. This GPU data is usually not updated in the loop, unless a chunk_update is called * @param chunk Chunk to load * @param coord coordinates in world space */ void chunk_load(struct chunk* chunk, int coord[2]); /** - * Unload a chunk. Delete block GPU and memory data, not the chunk data itself + * Chunk updates are performed on already loaded chunks. It will redraw the + * chunk mesh as needed based on block updates and whatnot. + * @param chunk Chunk to load + * @param coord coordinates in world space + */ +void chunk_update(struct chunk* chunk); +/** + * Unload a chunk. Delete GPU and memory data, not the chunk data itself * * @param chunk Chunk to load */ void chunk_unload(struct chunk* chunk); /* - * Similar to block_draw, this dispatches calls to OpenGL to draw the chunk. - * Technically this wraps block_draw, so block_draw is the one doing all the work + * This dispatches calls to OpenGL to draw the chunk. * @param chunk Chunk to draw * @param shader Shader to pass to block_draw * @param texture Textures that block_draw will use -- cgit