Dennis Gustafsson, creator of Teardown, presents how he parallelized the physics solver for an upcoming game, followed by a Q&A. The talk was given at the Better Software Conference 2025.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN points to it as a practical example of solving a tricky multithreading problem, including using a spinlock to speed up a real-time physics solver.
“The following is an interesting talk where the author used a spinlock to speed up a real-time physics solver significantly.”HN comment, 2026
“The following is an interesting talk where the author used a spinlock to speed up a real-time physics solver significantly.”
Spinlock used to significantly speed up a real-time physics solver.
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As always: use standard libraries, profile, then write your own if the data indicates it's necessary. The following is an interesting talk where the author used a spinlock to speed up a real-time physics solver significantly. Dennis Gustafsson – Parallelizing the physics solver – BSC 2025 this video
RecommendsHikikomoriMar 2026
“Not about multiplayer but still interesting.”
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Not about multiplayer but still interesting. Dennis Gustafsson – Parallelizing the physics solver – BSC 2025 this video
Cites itlevodelellisNov 2025
“From my understanding this talk describes how he implemented a solution for a similar problem”
Describes solving a similar multithreading problem in a physics solver.
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From my understanding this talk describes how he implemented a solution for a similar problem this video I'm saying if you're not writing multi-threaded code everyday, use a library. It can use atomics/locks but you shouldn't use it directly. If the library is designed well it'd be impossible to deadlock.
