Pygame's Performance - What You Need to Know

Many people say that Pygame is slow. Is it really?

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Timestamps:
0:00 - intro
1:59 - SDL's impact on performance
4:05 - Python's impact on performance
5:15 - other importants things to note
5:58 - what can you do with Pygame?
7:16 - things you shouldn't do with Pygame
8:15 - making games with Python but not Pygame
8:50 - outro

#python #pygame #gamedev

[DaFluffyPotato]

All gameplay footage shown in the background is from my own games. They're all open source (at least the ones that are released projects):

For those of you who are saying I’m wrong about SDL. Read the docs for the update from 1 to 2. It *says* it added hardware acceleration. SDL2 is very different from the SDL Pygame originally used (and I mentioned that in the video). SDL2 adds hardware acceleration and Pygame 2 will give access to that functionality. Pygame was created in 2000 and the development stalled for a long period of time, so it was never updated to use SDL2. Pygame 2 is a huge improvement over 1.9.x.

[Geofinnstar]

Description: Many people say that Pygame is slow. Is it really?

First Few Seconds: People say the Pygame is slow, *and that's because it is*

[badjano]

Small tip for pygame performance is to prerender images, if you´re drawing shapes and lines, draw it on a surface on load and then paint that surface on screen every frame, it will be a lot faster then drawing lines every frame... this is only for the case the lines aren´t moving relative to one another, because if not, it won´t make much sense to do that

[Orionhart]

You may not have heard of it, but there was a game engine developed using Python called Zero Engine, which was a proprietary engine used and created by DigiPen Institute of Technology whom I worked for and went to tech classes at. It was pretty alright. I don't remember too much, and I believe it was either discontinued or is simply no longer in use as many of the classes teach Unity instead.

[superscatboy]

Thanks for shouting out PyMunk!
Chipmunk is an amazing little physics engine and really deserves more love.

[prometheus]

Cython is also perfect to optimize your games, :) and it's wonderfully easy. Cython translates your Python code to C. For a beginner it is as easy as just compile a pure python file with Cython. This alone can increase your execution speed by 2 - 5 times! You can then start to slowly add C-Types and functions. Cython in fact is so good that it beat most code written directly in C, at least if you are just an average programmer.

[luisernestodeltoropena]

A nice and informative video. Just to add some more, there are a lot of ways to increase speed of python code, like using numpy for heavy array and matrix calculations, writing your own C extensions, using another python implementation like PyPy or mixing your code with language extensions like Cython.

[luisangel-ztop]

Just discovered this channel and im already a big fan of it.

[PerryBattles]

You have some of the most awesome videos on game dev. It's awesome you've been able to monetize your products as well.

[dicember]

Thank you, this argument has been a pain since the beginning, even tho, for the moment, I’ve never had performance issue with pygame (always converted image and avoided to write useless code)

[snesmocha]

since i started working on shader work, i moved to godot, but i'll always have a special place with learning pygame as it taught me all the basics of programming

[corelysium]

Honestly. PyGame for 2D games is perfectly fine in terms of speed although I would say that a language that desperately needs more libraries or docs for existing libraries is the nim programming language. It manages to get that beginner friendly rapid code development down, while still being a fairly high performance statically typed language and yes I am a little biased, cause it is similar to Pascal mixed with Python. Bite me for likeing Pascal I guess XD. SDL2 does already have a wrapper in nim for those who are wondering.

[Moon-wnrm]

Big fan of your content. Do you plan on making more in depth pygame tutorials in the future and advice to beginner programmers?

[CDcodes]

I always enjoy these discussion vids from you

[stickzman]

Your pixel art and animations look great!

[jfklittle]

6:11 Randy: I'm gonna pretend like I didn't see that...

[UnidayStudio]

Amazing video, as always! At 8:35, UPBGE (basically blender game engine) is a 3D game engine that uses python. I'm also writting my own free engine (Cave Engine) in C++, but scriptable in python.

[dawndev]

Great video!! You really show off its full potential!

[thecombatcactus]

Pretty much answered all my questions. Excellent

[TheHungarygamer]

with my optimized tile system when i stress test, i can load around 1.3k individual tiles with around 70 fps
i guess i have to check out your video on the particle system