XNA game performance

Question

I am writing a game using C# 2010 and XNA 4.0. I want it to be a good game and not some \"just another crap\" and so one of my goals is good framerate. For this I would like to

Answer 1

My 2 cents worth:

Don't put all your code in one method because you think it costs to call a method. If you THINK your losing 1-3 FPS by calling an empty method, You probably haven't finished researching the 1-3 loss yet. For that loss to be true during an empty method call, you'd have to have a FrameRate in the MANY thousands.... where you wouldn't concern yourself about a 1-3 drop.

FPS is a bad way to judge performance in XNA. When you have variable time step enabled, other processes that the OS is involved with can influence your frame rate. You really need to profile instead. Just concentrate on the amount of time it actually takes to complete the Update &/or Draw Methods by timing them with a System.Diagnostic.Stopwatch object. time them individually, not together (very important).

The 'new' keyword should not only be avoided in the draw call but anywhere in both the update & draw... FOR reference types only. Use the new keyword anytime and anywhere you need to with value types.