My options for storing/retrieving game level data

[keokeo]

Hi everyone. I am looking forward to hear some recommendations regarding storing and retrieving game level data for Windows in the fastest, most cpu-friendly way possible.

I was hoping to store some of the data for the game levels as bytes in a binary file using the binary object, thinking it would be lightning-fast and cpu-cheap. But a mere 8MB file takes about 20 seconds to load at the start of frame. Is this normal, or am I doing it wrong? Also binary files aren't dynamic and I might end up using only about 1/16th of the allocated 8MBs I am experimenting with now.

INI files and delimited strings were my first choice (I have that up and working also) and it's fast enough, but I am worrying it might get boggled once I start building the levels and data piles up and that might lead me to an unforeseen dead end.

Which of the two seems better to you and do you have any other ideas?

[ChrisBurrows]

8mb is quite large in the world of MMF. What exactly is 8mb?

How much and exactly what kind of information are you trying to load?

Possibly an array or an ini is your answer. Binary object seems like a bad option.

[keokeo]

I thought binary data would be the most stripped down, pure form of data to deal with and thus faster, but I could be wrong. The 8MB file contains bytes of 1s and 0s about destroying or not instances. I've tried a 32MB array which for some reason loads faster at the start of frame. Are binary files really that slow?

[BossRighteous]

How are you parsing the bytecode? That may be affecting performance.


Edit: hahahaha how on earth did I end up replying to a 2 year old thread?!