Parallel for Unity (Scripting/Threading)

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Parallel for Unity can make your games run faster!
*Includes Perlin Noise Example

What is Parallel for Unity?

  • Loops run over x2 faster
  • Unlocks the power of multi-thread CPUs
  • Divides work across multiple threads
  • Executes for/foreach loops in Parallel
  • Executes lambda expressions in Parallel

Why is Parallel for Unity useful?
If you have expensive thread-safe loops you can easily run them in Parallel without writing complex thread management code.

How? Replace:
for(int i = 0; i < max; i++){ … }
Parallel.For(0, max, (i) => { … });

foreach(var item in items) { … }
Parallel.ForEach(items, (item) => { … });

Method1();
Method2();
Parallel.Invoke(
() => Method1(),
() => Method2());

Want an easy way to manage threads?
Task for Unity
Want to spawn objects in Parallel?
Async Objects

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3

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Task for Unity
Async Objects

4

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But only until April 30th, so don’t miss out.

5

Hello,

Just tested with IEnumerator: and got this error :

error CS1621: The yield statement cannot be used inside anonymous method blocks[/code]

IEnumerator InstantiateHotspots()
        {   
            // Reset Image360 rotation to 0 to prevent wrong hotspot rotation after instantied
            Image360Controller.ResetRotation();
           
            Parallel.For(0, jsonvale["items"].Count, (i)=>
            {
                GameObject newSpot = Instantiate(hotspot, new Vector3(GetFloat(model.PositionX[i].ToString(),0), GetFloat(model.PositionY[i].ToString(),0), GetFloat(model.PositionZ[i].ToString(),0)), Quaternion.identity);
               
                newSpot.transform.SetParent(this.transform);
               
                newSpot.name = model.ID[i].ToString();
               
                if(ApplicationController.currentLanguage == Constants.JSON_NAME_FR)
                    newSpot.GetComponentInChildren<TextMeshProUGUI>().text = model.Name_fr[i].ToString();
                else
                    newSpot.GetComponentInChildren<TextMeshProUGUI>().text = model.Name_en[i].ToString();

                newSpot.SetActive(true);
               
                // Activate selection only when all hostpot finnished animation apparition
                if(i == (jsonvale["items"].Count - 1))
                {
                    animationEnd = true;

                    Image360Controller.RotationForHP();
                   
                    yield return new WaitForSeconds(0.5f);
                   
                    // Reveal hotspot
                    ApplicationController.FadeIn();
                   
                    // Delay hotspot animation apparition
                    var children = new List<GameObject>();
                    float num = .3f;
                    foreach (Transform child in transform) children.Add(child.gameObject);
                    for (int y = 0; y < children.Count; y++)
                    {
                        num = num + .1f;
                        children[y].transform.Rotate(new Vector3(0, -72, 0));
                        children[y].transform.DOScale(new Vector3(1.3f,1.3f,1.3f), .3f).SetDelay(num);
                    }
                }   
                newSpot.transform.GetChild(0).GetComponent<Transform>().localPosition = new Vector3(GetFloat(model.HPtxtPositionX[i].ToString(),0), GetFloat(model.HPtxtPositionY[i].ToString(),0), 0);
            });
        }

How can integrate with in Coroutine ?

Thx

6

There are 3 issues with what you’re doing.

  • A bunch of that code isn’t thread-safe. You can’t Instantiate or modify Transforms/GameObjects in a separate thread. Async Scheduler can schedule that code on the main thread, however the less thread-safe code is running in parallel the less benefits you get (You won’t benefit from Parallel if all of the code runs through Async). Most C# operations including math are thread-safe, Unity Engine classes are not.

  • The block of code containing the yield statement doesn’t belong in the loop because it only runs once at the end. It could simply be run after the loop.

  • You’re mixing co-routines and threads, if you wanted to add a delay in threads you use Thread.Sleep. But you must run the entire InstantiateHotspots method in a separate thread with Task or native threading.

7

Thanks for clear explanation, need to refactor my code :slight_smile:

Best,

8

What is the advantage using these instead the same methods from System.Threading.Tasks?

9

This was made for .NET 3.5 when .NET 4 functionality such as Tasks wasn’t supported. So I guess it’s only useful if you cannot use .NET 4 or higher

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