How can we make WotA faster?

[PascalCremer]

I've just done a quick game between pwahs03 and clonewarriors and it gets quite slow once around 1000 ants are on the map. Profiling showed:

In Call Tree:

• knapp 90% in GameWorld.tick()
• 30% in SpacePartitioning.antObjectsInsideCircle
• 22% in SpacePartitioning.antMessagesInsideCircle
• rest in pwahs AI and other methods

Sorted by selftime per method:

• 26% in Parameters.shortestVectorOnTorusTo
• 14% in SpacePartitioning.TsInsideCircle
• 10% in Vector.subtract
• 10% in pwahs03.HillAI.contained (checks if given Snapshot is contained in a given list)
• 8% in shortestDifferenceOnTorus (which does not more than:
  return shortestVectorOnTorusTo(Vector.subtract(p1,p2));)
• 8% in Parameters.distance(Vector, Vector)
• 4% in Vector.add

which already gives 80% of the runtime.

Any ideas, comments?

[PascalCremer]

One can shift runtime from measuring distances to SpacePartitioning by making the cells so small that one can guarantee 'is inside circle' for the neighboring cells.

[DanielBruegmann]

Could you please tell me again what you used to profile?

[PascalCremer]

I used VisualVM. It can be integrated into Eclipse but also used as is.

[LoadingPleaseWait]

I think the speed of WotA could be improved by threading, especially with the graphics and ant ticks.