C++ was created in 1983, by Bjarne Stroustrup. That means it has had 3 decades worth of improvements. Most of the popular game engines like CryEngine, Unreal, Unity etc. use C++, because they do not prefer any other language to develop a game. C++ is the best choice for them. It's an old beast with tons of cumbersome issues and has compilers for every single platform ever. C++ has something more which are can't afford any other language.
So, let’s find out what C++ has and why it’s the most widely used language by the professional game developer.
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C++ is a language with a relatively high entry barrier and it allows more direct control over the hardware and graphical processes.
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It's low-level programing language with OOP supported, means it uses internal structures to better organize code into reusable blocks. When dealing with a huge project OOP is a real help and C++ has excellent support for this.
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Most games are written for Windows and C++ language has been heavily supported by Microsoft.
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It's trivial to embed a game engine scripting language like Lua.
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It offers an easy upgrade path.
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More companies looking to hire bright coders with a background in C++.
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It's portable, fast and simplifying ports your game engine to iOS, XBOX, PS3, PS4.
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It supports all the SDKs natively.
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Lots of libraries are available in C++.
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Its standard library offers a broad array of containers and algorithms. So, implementation any given task can be done with less code in C++.
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Everyone over the world who writing games, are also familiar with C++ undoubtedly, so it's easy to hire experienced games devs for your team and work.
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It supports a variety of different coding styles and supports procedural programming for more CPU intensive functions.
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In the combination of templates, the function allows C++ to easily generate efficient inlined custom code at compile time.
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In C++ you can allocate local variables that disappear after the function ends.
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It has a direct translation to executable code.
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The speed benefit of C++ is due to its ability to use your own custom-written memory manager for heap allocations.
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The different programming languages like C# might be just as suitable for games development, but it came after C++.
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Games programmers have mostly been comfortable with C++, possibly because they grew up with C and C++, and it met their needs.
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C++'s design allows for compatibility with C, a huge codebase has been built around C or C++.
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There is a point where you make a call to trade off performance for maintainability and speed of development. Generally, that point is C++ these days.
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C++ gives better performance than C#.
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C++ is faster than C# in every case, though the .NET Framework and the optimisations that the runtime/compiler apply to the IL code are quite unique and fast.
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C++ is also an order of magnitude greater than the step in programmer efficiency between C and C++, or C++ and C# or Java.
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C++ gives you a finer grain of control over the actual hardware and bit pushing.
That’s enough reason to figure out why C++ is the first choice for game developers. Hope you like this article. Thank you!
