Entity-Component-System Benchmarks

This repository contains a collection of benchmarks for popular Entity-Component-System (ECS) frameworks. The benchmarks cover different aspects of ECS frameworks, such as update systems, component additions/removals, and entity creation/destruction. It's important to note that different ECS frameworks have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, some frameworks might excel in adding/removing components, while others might be better at creating/destroying entities. Therefore, it's crucial to choose an ECS framework based on your specific requirements.

ECS (Entity-Component-System) Frameworks:

• EntityX
• EnTT
• Ginseng
• mustache
• flecs
• pico_ecs

TL;DR Results

The benchmark results are displayed in tables and charts, allowing you to quickly compare the performance of different ECS frameworks in different scenarios. When using ECS frameworks, it's important to benchmark your specific use case and compare the results. Therefore, the results of these benchmarks should be used as a starting point for your own benchmarking efforts.

Update systems (for-each entities (with mixed components) in 5 systems)

(lower is better)

While this benchmark only includes up to 5 simple components and 5 small systems, it's important to note that Entity-Component-Systems can become much more complex in the wild, with hundreds of components and systems. Therefore, it's crucial to always benchmark your specific cases and systems when necessary and compare results. Choose an ECS framework based on its features, for example, EnTT offers resource management and event handling, while flecs provides useful add-ons, and EntityX includes a built-in world/system manager.

To evaluate a framework, look at its examples and API design, and pick the one that suits your needs the best.

Details

Features

All benchmarks are located in the benchmark/benchmarks/ directory and are implemented with the google/benchmark library. Each benchmark must implement the ECSBenchmark.h template.

Each framework has its own sub-project in the src/ directory and must implement specific features (see src/base).

Components

1. PositionComponent: includes x and y coordinates.
2. VelocityComponent: includes x and y coordinates for movement.
3. DataComponent: includes some arbitrary data.
4. HealthComponent: Hero/Monster data includes HP/MaxHP and status.
5. DamageComponent: Hero/Monster data includes damage.

Systems

1. MovementSystem: updates the PositionComponent with a constant VelocityComponent.
2. DataSystem: updates the DataComponent with arbitrary data.
3. MoreComplexSystem: updates components with random data and arbitrary information.
4. HealthSystem: update Hero/Monster health (update HP and status).
5. DamageSystem: update Hero/Monster health by taking damage.

Additional Benchmarks

Benchmarks for more common features, such as "Creating entities", "Adding and removing components", and others.

Features tested

• Entity Creation
• Entity Destruction
• Component Retrieval
• Adding and Removing Components
• Systems (for iterating through entities)

Environment

• OS: Linux 64-Bit (Kernel: 6.5.4)
• CPU: 3.13GHz @ 12Cores
• RAM: 47GB
• Compiler: gcc (GCC) 13.2.1

Create entities

(lower is better)

Destroy entities

(lower is better)

Get one component from Entity

(lower is better)

Note:

• Get one non-const component
  1. PositionComponent

Get two components from entity

(lower is better)

Note:

• Get non-const- and const-component
  1. PositionComponent
  2. const VelocityComponent

Get three components from entity

(lower is better)

Note:

• Not every entity has three components, some has only two
• Get two non-const- and const-component(s)
  1. PositionComponent
  2. const VelocityComponent
  3. DataComponent (optional)

Remove and add component

(lower is better)

Note:

• Remove and add PositionComponent

Update systems (for-each entities in 2 systems)

(lower is better)

Note:

• Systems used
  1. MovementSystem
  2. DataSystem

Update systems (for-each entities (with mixed components) in 2 systems)

(lower is better)

Note:

• Systems used
  1. MovementSystem
  2. DataSystem
• Not every entity has all three components, some got removed

Update systems (for-each entities in 5 systems)

(lower is better)

Note:

• Systems used
  1. MovementSystem
  2. DataSystem
  3. MoreComplexSystem
  4. HealthSystem
  5. DamageSystem
• * EnTT iterate components via views
• ** EnTT iterate components via runtime views
• *** EnTT iterate components via groups:
  1. DataSystem: No Group, use registry.view<DataComponent>. (Can't group a single component)
  2. MovementSystem: Partial-owning group, registry.group<PositionComponent>(entt::get<const VelocityComponent>)
  3. MoreComplexSystem: Full-owning group, registry.group<PositionComponent, VelocityComponent, DataComponent>()
• **** EnTT iterate components via view and uses a stable component (StablePositionComponent)

Update systems (for-each entities (with mixed components) in 5 systems)

(lower is better)

Note:

• Systems used
  1. MovementSystem
  2. DataSystem
  3. MoreComplexSystem
  4. HealthSystem
  5. DamageSystem
• Not every entity has all three components, some got removed
• * EnTT iterate components via views
• ** EnTT iterate components via runtime views
• *** EnTT iterate components via groups:
  1. DataSystem: No Group, use registry.view<DataComponent>. (Can't group a single component)
  2. MovementSystem: Partial-owning group, registry.group<PositionComponent>(entt::get<const VelocityComponent>)
  3. MoreComplexSystem: Full-owning group, registry.group<PositionComponent, VelocityComponent, DataComponent>()
• **** EnTT iterate components via view and uses a stable component (StablePositionComponent)

Contributing

If you have any improvements to the ECS-examples for any of the frameworks, feel free to make a pull request or open an issue. The example(s) for each framework can be found in src/, and benchmarks are located in benchmarks/benchmarks/ for more details.

Additionally, you can write tests for the framework example and add some metadata to the plot.config.json file. Any contributions are greatly appreciated!

TODO: make more detailed "how to add framework"

Read CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.

Run Benchmarks

Using Taskfile

1. git submodule update --init --recursive
2. Build: task build
3. Run (All) Benchmarks: task benchmark
4. Plot Graphs: task plot:all

You can now find the benchmark-results in reports/.

You need python (>=3.9.0) and some dependencies to run gen-benchmark-report (plotting)

pip install -r ./scripts/gen-benchmark-report/requirements.txt

Step-by-Step

1. Configure and build benchmarks, see Building Details:
   1. git submodule update --init --recursive
   2. cmake -S . -B ./build
   3. cmake --build ./build
2. Run benchmark(s), with run-benchmarks.sh or each:
   • ./build/benchmark/benchmarks/entt/ecs-benchmark-entt (console output) (optional)
   • ./build/benchmark/benchmarks/entt/ecs-benchmark-entt --benchmark_format=json > ./reports/entt.json (write json report)
3. Plot Reports, after generating json reports, see plot-results.sh:
   1. python3 ./scripts/gen-benchmark-report -i ./info.json gen-plot ./reports/entityx.json ./reports/entt.json ./reports/ginseng.json ./reports/mustache.json ./reports/openecs.json ./reports/flecs.json (generate graphs)
   2. python3 ./scripts/gen-benchmark-report -i ./info.json gen-results-md ./reports/entityx.json ./reports/entt.json ./reports/ginseng.json ./reports/mustache.json ./reports/openecs.json ./reports/flecs.json (generate full report)

Links and More

• Dependency Setup
• Building Details
• Project Template, mix of: starter_template and ModernCppStarter
  • Forked cpp_vcpkg_project
• Google benchmark
• https://github.com/SanderMertens/ecs-faq
• https://github.com/jslee02/awesome-entity-component-system

Candidates

EntityX by @alecthomas

Entity Component Systems (ECS) are a form of decomposition that completely decouples entity logic and data from the entity "objects" themselves. The Evolve your Hierarchy article provides a solid overview of EC systems and why you should use them.

Version: 1.1.2 (Apr 2023)

EnTT by @skypjack

EnTT is a header-only, tiny and easy to use library for game programming and much more written in modern C++.

Version: v3.12.2

Ginseng by @apples

Ginseng is an entity-component-system (ECS) library designed for use in games.

The main advantage over similar libraries is that the component types do not need to be listed or registered. Component types are detected dynamically.

Any function-like object can be used as a system. The function's parameters are used to determine the required components.

Version: 1.1 (Dec 2021)

mustache by @kirillochnev

A fast, modern C++ Entity Component System

Version: 0.2 (Apr 2023)

OpenEcs by @Gronis

Open Ecs is an Entity Component System that uses metaprogramming, cache coherency, and other useful tricks to maximize performance and configurability. It is written in c++11 without further dependencies.

Version: 0.1.101 (Apr 2017)

Flecs by @SanderMertens

Flecs is a fast and lightweight Entity Component System that lets you build games and simulations with millions of entities.

Version: v3.2.7

pico_ecs by @empyreanx

A collection of cross-platform single header libraries written in C. Pure and simple ECS.

Version: 2.3 (Sep 2023)