Performance

Chunk streaming in game development

load only what is near the player

Interactive example · scroll or point here to play

load only what is near the player

Chunk streaming splits a large world into fixed-size chunks and keeps only the chunks near the player in memory, here 8 to 14 of the 98, the same count a world of 10,000 chunks would need. Chunks load inside the solid circle and unload only outside the larger dashed one, so the player pacing on a chunk border causes no reloads. With a single radius, the same pacing drops and reloads chunks 8 times in 2 seconds.

prompt bit

Stream the world in fixed-size chunks of 32 by 32 tiles, keep every chunk within 2 chunks of the player loaded, load new chunks asynchronously off the main thread, unload a chunk only once it is more than 3 chunks away so a player standing on a border does not cause reloads, and reuse chunk objects from a pool.

When to use it

Use chunks to keep a large world’s active memory and simulation local to the player. Build chunk data asynchronously, then activate rendering and physics on the appropriate thread.

Implementation example

Engine-neutral pseudocode. Adapt the functions and coordinate conventions to your engine.

for chunk in chunksWithin(player, loadRadius):
  requestLoad(chunk)
for chunk in loadedChunks:
  if distance(player, chunk) > unloadRadius:
    requestUnload(chunk)
// Keep unloadRadius greater than loadRadius.

Common mistakes

Do not unload a chunk with pending saves or references from active neighbors. Budget activation work too: loading on a background thread can still cause a frame spike when many objects are created at once.

Maintained by Nicolas Zullo · Follow on X ↗

When to use it

Implementation example

Common mistakes

Related concepts