Custom memory management and Allocators.

Here is an overview.

1) checkout rip-off's link. But make one BIG note. The allocator itself has to be stateless. The functions you call for memory allocation must hold their own internal state about the memory being allocated since the allocator cannot.
This means that writing custom allocators for the most part ammounts to calling "custom_malloc" and placement new along side "custom_free" and the destructor.

2) Seems complicated. If you are already making custom structures, why not just overload operator new for them? If your going to write something as generic as STL, just use STL. If you are going to write something custom, just write it custom.

3) Look for stuff like:
Memory Pools - pool of like-sized items for fast alloc/dealloc (when i profiled this was only ~2x faster than new/delete). Good because it avoids fragmentation (in the same profile new/delete eventually failed). Pool allocator could be designed to round-up random allocation sizes to the next pool size, thus wasting memory but eliminating fragmentation.

Arena Allocators - Alloc once from a stack. No item-wise free. Instead the entire arena is just reset (fast alloc, and VERY fast free). Can't be used with items that need auto-magic destruction (you MUST call arena_free on any item that needs its destructor called)

Memory Alignment - Alignment matters! expecially on consoles and and PC that you intend to use vector operations on (PSP's VFPU, PS3's CELL SPU, XBox/PC SSE).

Thank you both for the comments.

KulSeran
About 2, yes I can just override the new/delete operators, but it will limit my code to once specific allocation method, for example allocating from memory pool, and the code won't be portable without the memory pool, or in case if Ill decide to use another method for allocation.
3. Thanks Ill check it out.

If someone have something else to add, please!

Thanks a lot!

Quote:

Original post by s.kwee KulSeran About 2, yes I can just override the new/delete operators, but it will limit my code to once specific allocation method, for example allocating from memory pool, and the code won't be portable without the memory pool, or in case if Ill decide to use another method for allocation.

If you need flexible containers with optional custom allocators, use the std::library containers. Writing your own containers is error prone, and almost never necessary.

Quote:

Original post by swiftcoder Quote: Original post by s.kwee KulSeran About 2, yes I can just override the new/delete operators, but it will limit my code to once specific allocation method, for example allocating from memory pool, and the code won't be portable without the memory pool, or in case if Ill decide to use another method for allocation. If you need flexible containers with optional custom allocators, use the std::library containers. Writing your own containers is error prone, and almost never necessary.

I didn't talk about containers, and before Ill start to rewrite the functionality STL gives me Ill be 100% sure that STL is the bottle-neck and I need to write my own.
What I do want to write is custom allocation for specific objects (textures, meshes, entities), or better to say: to leave the option to implement custom allocators for my objects later.