Why is chunk size often a power of two?

Posted by danijar on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by danijar
Published on 2013-01-07T14:56:00Z Indexed on 2014/08/19 16:32 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 290

Filed under:

Performance

|

data-structure

|

minecraft

|

memory

There are many Minecraft clones out there and I am working on my own implementation. A principle of terrain rendering is tiling the whole world in fixed size chunks to reduce the effort of localized changes.

In Minecraft the chunk size is 16 x 16 x 256 as far as I now. And in clones I also always saw chunk sizes of a power of the number 2.

Is there any reason for that, maybe performance or memory related? I know that powers of 2 play a special role in binary computers but what has that to do with the chunk size?

© Game Development or respective owner

Related posts about Performance

Improving VPN performance - stronger encryption = more performance?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a site-to-site VPN set up with two SonicWall's (a TZ170 and a Pro1260). It was suggested to me that turning off encryption (so the VPN is tunneling only) would improve performance. (I'm not concerned with security, because the VPN is running over a trusted line.) Using FTP and HTTP transfers… >>> More
Inaccurate performance counter timer values in Windows Performance Monitor

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am implementing instrumentation within an application and have encountered an issue where the value that is displayed in Windows Performance Monitor from a PerformanceCounter is incongruent with the value that is recorded. I am using a Stopwatch to record the duration of a method execution, then… >>> More
Excel-based Performance Reviews transformed into Web Application for Performance Management

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
HR TMS provides enterprise talent management solutions for healthcare, retail and corporate customers, focusing on performance management, compensation management and succession planning. As the competency of nurses and other healthcare workers is critical, the government, via the Joint Commission… >>> More
How to save a perfmon Performance Counter as a textfile (Reliability and Performance Monitor Version

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Now the file gets saved as blg, but I would like a txt versin to import in Excel. >>> More
SQLAuthority News – A Successful Performance Tuning Seminar at Pune – Dec 4-5, 2010

as seen on SQL Authority - Search for 'SQL Authority'
This is report to my third of very successful seminar event on SQL Server Performance Tuning. SQL Server Performance Tuning Seminar in Colombo was oversubscribed with total of 35 attendees. You can read the details over here SQLAuthority News – SQL Server Performance Optimizations Seminar – Grand… >>> More

Related posts about data-structure

Data Structure Behind Amazon S3s Keys (Filtering Data Structure)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'd like to implement a data structure similar to the lookup functionality of Amazon S3. For those of you who don't know what I'm taking about, Amazon S3 stores all files at the root, but allows you to look up groups of files by common prefixes in their names, therefore replicating the power of a… >>> More
Suggestion for a Data Structure!

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have the following requirements for a data structure: Direct access to an element with the help of a key (Key will be an integer, range is also same as integer range) Avoid memory allocation in chunks (Allocate contigous memory for the data structure including the data) Should be able to grow… >>> More
Tree data structure in iphone with coredata

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I am looking to store a tree structure in CoreData for iphone. Can someone give me some tips on the best way to go about this? Basically I want to have a bunch of folders that people can dive into in a table view, and I want to have leaves of the tree be photos. The thing is, I want to be able… >>> More
Manipulate COBOL data structure

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello. I would like informations to manipulate tables. I encounter few problem with a piece of cobol code like below: 01 TABLE-1. 05 STRUCT-1 OCCURS 25 TIMES. 10 VALUE-1 PIC AAA. 10 VALUE-2 PIC 9(5)V999. 05 NUMBER-OF-OCCURS PIC 99. How do you update values? (update… >>> More
Best and simple data structure

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am trying to create the below matrix in my vb.net so during processing I can get the match scores for the alphabets, for example: What is the match for A and N?, I will look into my inbuilt matrix and return -2 Similarly, What is the match for P and L?, I will look into my inbuilt matrix… >>> More