Cascade: A Parallel Programming Framework for Video Game Engines

The Cascade Parallel Processing Framework (PPF) is a user level library that facilitates manual parallelization of complex C++ systems. In Cascade, processing duties of the system are enclosed in a Cascade Task. Tasks are linked by dependencies in a task dependency graph. The task graph is traversed at runtime by the Cascade Job Manager who assigns tasks to threads for execution. The Job Manager must correctly satisfy dependencies while maximizing performance. While a task-based PPF is not a new concept, Cascade’s unique goal is to address complex systems, such as video game engines. These systems are built as multiple interacting sub-systems, with non-trivial dependencies. Existing PPFs, while suitable for parallelization of individual sub-systems, do not solve the entire problem. In this paper we describe the early design and implementation of Cascade, present preliminary evaluation, and outline plans for future