Autocrat

Okay, so I have done quite a bit of game development and one of the things that we see in the game development industry is that everyone is using c++ and a mix of assembler over any other language / implementation.  The reason for this has been (and more than likely will always remain) that the speed and efficiency of c++ is undoubtedly unbeaten in any other implementation.

So having brought this into the picture, can you see any benefits for a game developer to use the CLR switch?  Quite frankly I think that managed code is definitely a developer oriented advantage - it allows us to speed up the development process, but not necessarily the speed and execution of our code.  I am not really sure I can see any advantages in this scenario of mixing managed code with a native implementation other than speeding up developer time.

I always feel as though any developer who needs pure speed and power is going to go for a native approach, do you see this as being a fading trend as we approach longhorn? Or is this going to remain true for this type of industry where speed is everything?

(Note: this post is completely ignoring managed directX, and the benefits it may or may not have for game developers -- I have not got any experience with it or seen any benefits or speed benchmarks)

Regards,

Matthew Cosier
Microsoft Australia

Back in those days she probably got taken around in a horse and cart between buildings