What is a good random number generator for a game?

Question

What is a good random number generator to use for a game in C++?

My considerations are:

1. Lots of random numbers are needed, so speed is good.
2. P

Answer 1

Depending on the target OS, you might be able to use /dev/random. It doesn't really require any implementation, and on Linux (and maybe some other operating systems) it's truly random. The read blocks until sufficient entropy is available, so you might want to read the file and store it in a buffer or something using another thread. If you can't use a blocking read call, you can use /dev/urandom. It generates random data almost as well as /dev/random, but it reuses some random data to give output instantly. It's not as secure, but it could work fine depending on what you plan to do with it.