Engine static lib

[Scott Richmond]

I'm with Jumooja on this one - Seems fairly pointless to me, and to that end I guess my only opinion on the matter is that I'd rather Josh spend his time on other more useful projects.

[Canardia]

And .lib is not supposed to take the .dll away anyway, because .lib is just as fast to compile as .cpp, because it creates the .o file anyway and the linking is the part which takes most time normally since the c++ code hasn't changed.

 

All C++ libraries are delivered in their runtime version as .lib + .dll, so you just drag & drop the .lib file into VC++, and it then loads automatically the .dll file when the program is run.

 

If you want really fast compile times, then you put as much code as possible into the .dlls, because then the linker doesn't have to check them. And when running the problem, they load just as fast as a single exe, because there is no thinking involved like in the linker process.

[Pixel Perfect]

All C++ libraries are delivered in their runtime version as .lib + .dll, so you just drag & drop the .lib file into VC++, and it then loads automatically the .dll file when the program is run.

Static linking with a .lib file requires no dll at all, nor does it when the .exe is executed. The lib contains the object code. Both are normally delivered to give you the choice between static and dynamic linking.

[Canardia]

Yes, if you don't use a .dll with a .lib, then it's the same as using a huge .cpp file, and it takes ages to run through the linker, even if the compiling has been done some days earlier. This is what happens with LEO also, because its so huge, so a LEO.DLL would help also here. Precompiled headers won't help either, because there is no compiling involved, it's only linking slowness.

[Mumbles]

Static builds are useless, they only need additional resources from the OS to handle the huge exe file size. Besides, then you can't update your game with the real changes, but always need to download a 4GB (or slightly smaller) exe.

 

My current project exe is only 102K and that's after it has 2 static linked libs built into it (One at 400K and one at 4.0 MB), while the Leadwerks Engine dll is 1.7 MB. Even if it was a static lib, the exe size would still not be huge (Not like the Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (offline) exe, which stands at 24.5 MB. What have they bloated that with?)

 

 

and it takes ages to run through the linker

 

I'm not too bothered about the compilation speed. For me, execution speed for the end user is the only important factor. The execution speed is (more-or-less) identical, isn't it?

[Paul]

This is what happens with LEO also, because its so huge, so a LEO.DLL would help also here.

The benefit of static linking is not all the code needs to be included in the exe, a leo.dll would be very pointless.

[Josh]

That seems very odd because .lib and .a files are routinely distributed, and I thought MSVC and GCC were both widely used.

[Thomas]

give me .so ;P