Performance penalty for working with interfaces in C++?

Question

Is there a runtime performance penalty when using interfaces (abstract base classes) in C++?

Answer 1

I know it's an uncommon viewpoint, but even mentioning this issue makes me suspect you're putting way too much thought into the class structure. I've seen many systems that had way too many "levels of abstraction", and that alone made them prone to severe performance problems, not due the cost of method calls, but due to the tendency to make unnecessary calls. If this happens over multiple levels, it's a killer. take a look