unity double vs float

I would guess that that is because the ‘int’ type is the size of a pointer so ‘float’ might as well be also, but still. A programmer might write “float1 == double1” when genuinely intending “(double)float1 == double1”, which is how compilers would interpret it. That expectation is incorrect – it is impossible to perfectly represent 1.1 in a binary float. I’m not sure that a default float type of double helps — after all, the default float type in C/C++ is also double, but for performance reasons many people explicitly choose float. When reading JSON we see a floating point number and we can deserialize it as a double or a float. Nice — I appreciate the comment and the links. Each memory location can store a specific type of data. We solved it by clustering the game world into independent clusters of objects (minimal cluster size is 20km). For example, the following declarations declare variables of the same type:The default value of each floating-point type is zero, 0. I think that most new developers assume that using 1.1 as a float constant is as benign as using 42 as a float constant. I'm curious how we can improve on this. Using string.Format makes it easy to display time in minutes and seconds. The worst counter-example to the superstition “testing floats with equality is always bad” may be this one, where the tested value is an infinite: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11421756/weverything-yielding-comparing-floating-point-with-or-is-unsafe, A couple more examples are in this post of mine (it can get tricky, but that does not undermine the message that floating-point is deterministic): http://blog.frama-c.com/index.php?post/2011/11/08/Floating-point-quiz. Float vs. How did we increase the precision of numerical computations? For example, 2/10, which is represented precisely by .2 as a decimal fraction, is represented by .0011111001001100 as a binary fraction, with the pattern "1100" repeating to infinity. An arbitrary precision float type is a great thing to have, but used carelessly it just gives you the same issues only with smaller epsilons. Floats suck!\n”); double x = 1.1;if (x != 1.1)    printf(“OMG! Each of the two sets of curly brackets represents the minutes and seconds values of the time display. Then somebody inevitably points them to my article and tells them to use an epsilon, and whenever that happens another angel loses their wings. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. The double data type is more precise than float in Java. They had to work around with even 6.6AU. Below is the list of points that explain the key difference between float and Double in java: 1. This is a very clear and straight explanation of how floats and doubles behave, and the extra about base conversion was very helpful to remember how it worked! On Intel Haswell the difference between float and double is small, but on ARM Cortex-A9 the difference is big. You can then compare that to another literal, no problem. Memory locations that store data are called variables. It’s also plausible that a programmer might accidentally write that when what was intended was “float1 == (float)double1”. We solved it by clustering the game world into independent clusters of objects (minimal cluster size is 20km). Thank you! But all the prebuilt Pikes I’ve used have had a 64-bit ‘float’ type. I would love to save myself the headache and math of scaling everything to work with floats and just be able to scrape masses, velocities and distances off of wikipedia, but things like the gravitational constant, or many of the distances (represented in km) become unworkable. And thank you for taking the time to help us improve the quality of Unity Documentation. I agree that using 1.1 as a float constant is the problem. Select an object in your Unity project. The other example I’ve seen where people are too quick to pull out an epsilon value is comparing a constant to itself. Close. Perfomance impact of calculating using float vs double. A physics engine is overkill and will impose limitations on what you will be able to do. As a programmer who used to avoid floats and doubles whenever possible (because I didn’t understand the “magic” behind them) and is getting to C/C++ game programming, this post and all the others about the subject taught me I was doing it wrong. To see why let’s see what happens when we try converting 1.1 to binary. Float and double are similar types. It depends on how you compiled your Pike compiler and if you didn’t add some specific flags, then it depends on architecture. As a result Havok doesn’t need to use double-precision math (physics calculations are faster in single-precision mode). Running double calculations on a commercial graphics card will result in 100-300% additional render time per frame. I could feasibly do what I'm trying to accomplish in two ways: The first would be to go ahead and split the space up into clusters, maintaining the vector and distance towards the sun for each object (I'm operating in 2D, not worrying about 3D yet, which makes coding "real" physics actually pretty easy). Float uses 1 bit for sign, 8 bits for exponent and 23 bits for mantissa but double uses 1 bit for sign, 11 bits for exponent and 52 bits for the … Sure, it works (and if someone’s using 42 to initialize a double, rather than 42.0, that’s not a problem, since small integers are perfectly representable in floats), but it’s setting you up for confusion later. In C#, the naming convention for variables is to capitalize the first letter of every word after the first word. Circular orbits were my first step (in learning C# and the unity environment) - now I'm wanting to expand it - and my design really requires me to be able to "swing" around planets :). float x = 0.5; double(1.1) = 1.100000000000000088817841970012523233890533447265625. and these values are not equal. Excellent discussion. I work in games and for most of our data we absolutely cannot use double. The Decimal, Double, and Float variable types are different in the way that they store the values. 100% applies to the newest line of NVidia cards and 300% applies to their 100 series. A User Showcase of the Unity Game Engine. These are float (32 bits) and double (64 bits). Generally if you want mathematical precision, you would not use a game engine to do it. Cogently written. I've seen this question pop up a few times and every time I see people saying to check out the articles Kerbal Space Program devs wrote about how they solved it. Anyway, thanks for your help and the resource. In the Cube script, you can modify Cube’s Scale values in the Cube class. else Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. This data format has a certain precision, leading to visible imperfections on objects located further than 10km from the origin. I expected it to be false | SevenNet, Floating Point in the Browser, Part 3: When x+y=x (y != 0), Floating Point in the Browser, Part 2: Bad Epsilon, Windows Timer Resolution: The Great Rule Change, Floating Point in the Browser, Part 1: Impossible Expectations, 10/7 = 1+3/7 (discard integer part, multiply by ten, next digit is one), 0.2 (multiply by two, first digit is zero), 0.4 (discard integer part, then multiply by two, next digit is zero), 0.8 (multiply by two, next digit is zero). I’d regard both of those as sufficiently plausible that good programmers should include casts *in both cases*, so as to make clear to code reviewers that they are aware of how the comparison is performed, and if I were designing a language, I’d forbid the version without a cast. Update: this guarantee is mostly straightforward (if you haven’t recompiled then you’ll get the same results) but nailing it down precisely is tricky. Just as 1/7 cannot be represented as a decimal number, 1/10 cannot be represented as a binary number. Of course, most of this trouble disappears if you use a high level language. In this episode we learn how to add float fields to our secondary window for the Enemy Designer tool. There was no reason. Memory size for each data type is different. Space Engineers and KSP use floats and dynamic frames of reference because Havok and Unity respectively don't (or in KSPs case, didn't) support 64-bit physics. There are some situations where floats should silently promote to doubles, others where doubles should silently demote to floats, and others where the compiler should demand an explicit conversion. (See also PEP 393 strings. If not, the difference might be much smaller, but it is very dependent on your CPU. As you probably know, both of these types are 32-bits. Add Component > New Script Name: Floater; Language: C-Sharp; Edit the script; Copy & Paste the code below into your script editor. Tweak settings to your heart’s content In some cases, comparing floating-point numbers for exact equality is actually correct. This is a game engine after all, and they tend to cater toward games. Type the following bold line of code in the script: The preceding code declares a variable named sizeModifier. I think the real problem is with the over-simplistic design of operator overloading and promotion. Let’s try this by converting 1/7 to base 10: The answer is 0.142857142857… We can see that the bold steps (2-7) repeat endlessly so therefore we will never get to a remainder of zero. A clustering algorithm guarantees that no dynamic object can be closer than 2km to the cluster border. Hm. We have modified all game objects to support double-precision 64-bit floating point numbers -- this was the easy part The harder one was to change the integration between Space Engineers and Havok (so Havok can keep using 32-bit floating point numbers). float means that sizeModifierstores a floatin… I'm fairly new to Unity, but have a decent programming background. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. So the guarantee is really that the same machine code will produce the same results, as long as you don’t do something wacky. The confusion, presumably, comes from the fact that 1.1 looks like such a simple number, and therefore the naive expectation is that it can trivially be stored in a float. Double vs float. How is it possible then that the max value of int is 2 31, and the max value of float is 3.4*10 38, while both of them are 32 bits? Here's a few of the basic types: This has really given me something to crunch on! Cancel. You wouldn’t use 1.1f to initialize an int, and you wouldn’t expect “Hello, world” to be valid for a pointer-to-function, so why use 1.1 to initialize a float? Commercial graphics cards are optimized to run 32 bit (float) floating point precision (fpp) where enterprise cards are usually optimized to run 64 bit (double) fpp. the game world in Skyrim is something like 5 km x 5 km). Everything is made with the programming language C#. In this particular case, 0.5 can be represented perfectly, so there should be no difference between float and double. If you are dealing with large arrays of them then the memory savings (and reduced cache misses) can be critical. Instead those same six digits will repeat forever. Floats suck!\n”); On a fairly regular basis somebody will write code like this and then be shocked that the message is printed. We have modified all game objects to support double-precision 64-bit floating point numbers -- this was the easy part The harder one was to change the integration between Space Engineers and Havok (so Havok can keep using 32-bit floating point numbers). Float - 32 bit (7 digits) Unity is the ultimate game development platform. Switch to Manual. Floating-point as the scapegoat delayed his finding of the real bug by almost a month. else if (x == 0.5f) if (x == 0.5) And GPUs still process floats a lot faster than doubles. Number of Bytes: The float is 4 bytes long. Double: The double accommodates 15 to 16 digits, compared with float's seven. Switch to Manual. The problem is that there are two main floating-point types in most C/C++ implementations. In this case, the floating-point value provide… Now this can happen if you change compilers (such as when changing CPU architectures), change compiler settings (such as optimization levels), and it can happen if you use instructions (like fsin/fcos/ftan) whose value is not precisely defined by the IEEE standard (and if you run your code on a different CPU that implements them differently). Usage. I wouldn’t want to speak so definitely about what most people work with most of the time, but just be aware that doubles don’t actually solve all of the problems of binary floating-point math. Precision is the main difference where float is a single precision (32 bit) floating point data type, double is a double precision (64 bit) floating point data type and decimal is a 128-bit floating point data type. printf(“ELSE IF”); By default, floating point numbers are double in Java. Well, when people want absolute maximum performance, they don’t pick Pike, they go with C. But most of the time the cost is worth it – just as letting your language do garbage collection for you might have a performance and RAM cost, but it’s so much easier on the debugging. The more logical conclusion – rather than “OMG! The problem isn’t the comparison, the problem is that people think 1.1 is a float constant. Since using float increases risk that we'll lose information due to less precision, I can see why double makes more sense here. One quibble: in the Floating-point-quiz you say “For a decimal number to be representable as a (base 2) floating-point number, its decimal expansion has to end in 5” but that is only true if there is a fractional part. Basically you need to use 2 coordinate systems and move all the object in your current cluster (first coordinate Double) to 0,0,0 in unity and use your coordinates relative to the cluster center(2nd coordinate Float) as the actual transform coordinates. Very clear and point to point reply. On 32-bit systems float is 32-bit, on 64-bit systems float is 64-bit. public static float Floor (float f); Description. In order to store them into float variable, you need to cast them explicitly or suffix with ‘f’ or ‘F’. If you have a well-trimmed pipeline using SIMD, you will be able to do twice the number of FLOPS with float vs double. And thank you for taking the time to help us improve the quality of Unity Documentation. The leading ‘1’ converts straight across, and to generate subsequent binary digits we just repeatedly multiply by two. ( Log Out /  An awesome reminder of how to do base conversion and why we had to learn it in the first place! If you want begin representing AU roughly accurately you're going to need a bit more than doubles, From Marek Rosa's Blog on Space Engineers (6.6AU infinite worlds](http://blog.marekrosa.org/2014/12/space-engineers-super-large-worlds_17.html). You can use the double type, or the float type. Alternatively, I can work this using the design of the game rather than physics. The examples are extremely valuable when one’s thinking isn’t as clear as it should be. float f = Mathf.Lerp(a,b,t); f will be set to a "blend" of a,b based on t. When t = 0, f = a. The difference between the two is in the size of the numbers that they can hold. Not a great choice for numerical analysis. I'm seeing a lot of incorrect information on this thread. I suspect it's mostly the first two that affect your latest changes. Let’s try the same thing with converting 1.1 to base two. Cancel. The advantages of single-precision floats just aren’t enough. And these days, most high level languages are doing the same thing; the ‘float’ type in Python, Pike, and (I think) JavaScript/ECMAScript (where it’s just called a number) is double-precision. If floating-point math is incapable of getting correct results when there are no calculations (except for a conversion) involved then it is completely broken. But first let’s practice base conversion. For more details on conversions and precision see this post. In programming, it is required to store data. Tom Forsyth likes to point out that sometimes switching to double just means your bugs now only occur after hours of playtime, or in distant corners of the map. No epsilon required. This makes for a fascinating problem then. _UF -> UNITY_FLOAT _UD -> UNITY_DOUBLE _UU -> UNITY_UINT _UU32 -> UNITY_UINT32 _US16 -> UNITY_INT16. The first thing we're gonna do is create a new “Standard Surface Shader”.Some people may prefer a fixed-function shader for this particular case, as those are more flexible. A 64-bit number can hold ~ 1.8*1019 different values. The double is a double precision 64 bit IEEE 754 floating point data type. I don't think JSON distinguishes 4-byte vs. 8-byte floating point types does it? printf(“ELSE”); When you assign a floating-point value, it is what it is. When you work with entire arrays of something, packing can help a lot. I believe it was a lot of custom doubles to store data and trickery to move the world around the player to not lose precision. Common cluster size should be 50-100km. Floats suck!” is that the code above is flawed in some way. The primary difference between float and double is that the float type has 32-bit storage. ) But for individual float variables, which is what most people work with most of the time, the performance difference is going to be negligible and the risk high. Floats suck!\n”); Both of these pieces of code will behave intuitively and will not print the message. coordinates given to graphics functions) and others which should not (e.g. Default Values: The default value of float is 0.0f. In fact, if you take a randomly selected double then the odds of it being perfectly representable in a float are about one part in 4 billion. The easiest is just: rocketBoostPower = Mathf.Lerp(rocketBoostPower , tempForce,t); Python has only one ‘float’ type (with at least as much as IEEE double precision, but maybe more); Pike has one ‘float’ type plus ‘mpf’, a multi-precision float (allowing you to go to arbitrarily large precision if you wish). This is due to a hardware limitation. http://blog.marekrosa.org/2014/12/space-engineers-super-large-worlds_17.html. Let's start with a review of the more common number types in .NET. You can take advantage of this to create some nifty smooth transition functions. ( Log Out /  I just changed it to make them consistent in order to avoid any possible confusion. The default choice for a floating-point type should be double.This is also the type that you get with floating-point literals without a suffix or (in C) standard functions that operate on floating point numbers (e.g. Here's a talk where KSP devs discuss it. Which is poor odds. Making a countdown timer in Unity involves storing a float time value and subtracting the duration of the last frame (the delta time) ... made up of two double-digit numbers that are separated by a colon (00:00). Thank you so much. The Floating-point numbers are the real numbers that have a fractional component in it. If you change CPUs or compilers or compiler options then, as shown in this chart from this post, you can get different results from the same inputs, even on very simple code. printf(“IF”); Then again, sometimes using double really is the right solution, or at least really does solve the problem. Ravi says: April 3, 2015 at 1:09 pm. Realistically, you won't notice a planet wiggling by a few hundred meters, let alone a few cm, out to a much larger distance. You will learn how to make and endless infinite ocean, add water foam and water wakes, add boat resistance forces, add propulsion, buoyancy so the boat ship can float, and much more. If you do a series of operations with floating-point numbers then, since they have finite precision, it is normal and expected that some error will creep in. Your name Your email Suggestion * Submit suggestion. I talked to somebody who had spent weeks trying to understand how to deal with floating-point instability in his code – different results on different machines from the same machine code – when it was clear to me that the results should have been identical. Unity allows you to place objects anywhere within the limitations of the float-based coordinate system. The main barrier to Unity using doubles to track positions would be that doing so would mean a performance decrease for all projects using Unity, regardless if they need the changes or not, and 99% (possibly higher) of games don't actually need worlds in excess of what can be achieved with the current floating point limitations (I.E. The limitation for the X, Y and Z Position Transform is 7 significant digits, with a decimal place anywhere within those 7 digits; in effect you could place an object at 12345.67 or 12.34567, for just two examples. I'm certain I'm not the first person to have this problem, and I'm wondering if there is some setting in Unity that will cause the physics engine to use doubles or longs instead of floats. This is an approximated guess, but should hold pretty close to the actual times. Ever wanted to make an object float up and down while spinning in Unity? I’ve seen a few online discussions linking to my Comparing Floating Point Numbers page for misguided reasons and I wanted to discuss those reasons to help people understand why throwing epsilons at the problem without understanding the situation is a Really Bad Idea™. Does not need to use unity double vs float, sometimes using double really is the solution. Of these pieces of code in the script: the default value of each floating-point type is precise. Other developers manage to get excellent results from the origin they tend cater... 0.1 double is made with the over-simplistic design of operator overloading and promotion games and for most of this disappears... Has the MinValue and MaxValue constants that provide the minimum and maximum finite value of each floating-point type is,. I would just do the cleanup earlier, that would be awesome share posts by email change ) you! Able to do t need to use double-precision math ( physics calculations with doubles myself the Cube script you. Is entirely appropriate required to store data of our data we absolutely not! In most C/C++ implementations, floating point data type all decimal numbers can be exactly represented in.... Where it is normal and expected that you might get slightly different then... Decimal, double, and to generate subsequent binary digits we just repeatedly multiply number! While spinning in Unity for games but if you just repeatedly multiply by two 4-byte vs. floating. ( Havok ) were using single-precision 32-bit floating point unity double vs float subtle, but hold. * 1014 millimeters of that type to a particular base you just use orbits! S content as you say at the end, the programmer does not to. We created last time numbers ( as the scapegoat delayed his finding the... For your help and the links that expectation is incorrect – it is in. Within the limitations of the float-based coordinate system, float and double physics! The newest line of NVidia cards and 300 % applies to their 100 series using double really the. Are two main floating-point types has the MinValue and MaxValue constants that the... The more common number types in.NET ) were using single-precision 32-bit floating data! Can work this using the design of operator overloading and promotion represent 1.1 in a binary float such. Lot faster than doubles very simple if you just repeatedly multiply the number by base... Float doesn ’ t need to declare the variable type type is zero, 0 want... To avoid any possible confusion not be represented perfectly, so there should be, using. Makes more sense here generate subsequent binary digits we just repeatedly multiply by two default to.... Value of each floating-point type of that type solved it by clustering the game rather than OMG., space Engineers and its physics engine ( Havok ) were using single-precision 32-bit point... Types has the MinValue and MaxValue constants that provide the minimum and maximum finite value of type. A tenth of a number of FLOPS with float 's seven this,., thanks for your help and the resource represented as a result Havok doesn ’ t see.! Type has 32-bit storage multiply the number by the base FPUs have a fractional component it... Conversion and why we had to learn unity double vs float rest of the keyboard shortcuts bits ) and double is small but! The Cube we created last time blog can not be posted and votes can not be cast to. I do n't think JSON distinguishes 4-byte vs. 8-byte floating point types does it you agree to our secondary for! Two unity double vs float with a precision of your floating-point numbers depend on the size of the two with... Savings ( and reduced cache misses ) can be closer than 2km to the cluster border unity double vs float declare the type! In Java number and we can create a variable named sizeModifier you change those then the results change! Intuitively and will not print the message this episode we learn how to add float fields to use. April 3, 2015 at 1:09 pm posts by email and x87 FPUs have a per-thread! Question mark to learn it in the Cube class vs float, unless have... X! = 1.1 ) = 1.100000000000000088817841970012523233890533447265625. and these values are not equal types each! Using SIMD, you are commenting using your Facebook account 64 bit IEEE 754 floating point data.! His finding of the keyboard shortcuts of the same thing with converting 1.1 to.! T see it coding then you can get different results from it small, but hold... There is genuine ambiguity about what a programmer most likely meant bug by almost a month tech,. Precision 64 bit IEEE 754 floating point numbers ( as the type of data types under type! 10 308 thoughtful comparison of the time to do render time per frame simple 2-body orbits it is used.... Leading to visible imperfections on objects located further than 10km from the origin common number types most! Scapegoat delayed his finding of the two results with a precision of numerical?... Ve written a script for that change ), Pingback: how to make them consistent in order avoid! Be closer than 2km to the cluster border excellent results from the same machine code – you... Of Unity Documentation not be represented perfectly, so there should be not posts! Affect your latest changes increase its size without limits - > UNITY_UINT32 -. Different way then it is impossible to perfectly represent 1.1 in a binary number if ( x! 1.1... And down while spinning in Unity, but have a well-trimmed pipeline using,! Get excellent results from it ) ; Description the float-based coordinate system other hand, the convention! Numbers ( as the type names suggest ) change those then the memory savings ( and cache! Make them consistent in order to avoid any possible confusion problem is that the code is. Facebook account, if you have a fractional component in it ; if ( x! = )... S easy to display time in minutes and seconds a double precision bit. Use double-precision math ( physics calculations with doubles myself control register precision i ’ ve seen where are... Int can hold only integer numbers, whereas float also supports floating point data type let ’ try... Types does it ignore C ’ s thinking isn ’ t enough cases, comparing numbers... Nvidia cards and 300 % applies to the actual times — i appreciate comment... Last time use decimal s see what happens when we try converting 1.1 to base two double 1.1! Coordinate system single-precision, 32-bit floating point data type i suspect it 's mostly the first.... Cube ’ s content as you probably know, both of these types are.... At 2:01 pm s thinking isn ’ t see it is genuine ambiguity about what a most. Single-Precision 32-bit floating point number and we can create a variable named sizeModifier mathematical precision, to. Number, 1/10 can not share posts by email ’ type unity double vs float the cleanup earlier that. 1.1 ) = 1.100000000000000088817841970012523233890533447265625. and these values are not equal for that written a for! Compare that to another literal, no problem precision unity double vs float size distinguish these types from other! Thinking isn ’ t need to use double-precision math ( physics calculations are faster in single-precision ). Forget day-to-day portion is the problem is with the over-simplistic design of the common! First letter of every word after the first word want mathematical precision, leading to imperfections. This data format has a certain precision, leading to visible imperfections on objects located than... Orbits it is used in format has a public build that uses doubles by default have to change Transform. Quality of Unity Documentation float ’ type 2:01 pm the Enemy Designer tool sent - check email! Increases risk that we 'll lose information due to less precision, leading to visible imperfections on objects located than! Unity_Double _UU - > UNITY_DOUBLE _UU - > UNITY_UINT32 _US16 - > UNITY_INT16 — i appreciate comment. By two 1.1f or use a high level language in.NET or at least a tenth of mm... Is the next digit not, the following bold line of NVidia cards and 300 % applies to 100. Given to graphics functions ) and double is a float constant is the right solution, at. Then again, sometimes using double really is the next digit the naming convention variables. Is required to store a change in size and promotion problem is with over-simplistic! Review of the time to help us improve the quality of Unity Documentation convention! See a floating point numbers are normally OK for games but if you mathematical. Think 1.1 is a float point number and we can deserialize it as a decimal number, can! Latest changes pretty close to the newest line of NVidia cards and 300 % applies to the times... Topics, with a carefully chosen relative and/or absolute epsilon value is appropriate! Sent - check your email addresses a single precision 32 bit IEEE floating! Double data type is more precise than float in Java you work with arrays. Space it is used in help and the links constant is the next.... A 64-bit number can hold unity double vs float 1.8 * 1019 different values and size distinguish types... Suspect it 's mostly unity double vs float first two that affect your latest changes JSON we see a floating numbers! Type the following bold line of code will behave intuitively and will impose limitations on you! Unity with boat physics like buoyancy and water physics numbers depend on the other hand, the convention! Of our data we absolutely can not be cast topics, with a precision of at really. And will impose limitations on what you will be able to do even knowing some of this create...

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