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Transforming Game Development: How Build Insights Revolutionized Call of Duty's Performance Episode

Transforming Game Development: How Build Insights Revolutionized Call of Duty's Performance

· 03:17

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How Build Insights Transformed Call of Duty's Game Development

In game development, every second matters—especially when you're working with massive C++ codebases like Call of Duty. Slow builds can bring development to a crawl, delaying bug fixes, gameplay refinements, and new features. That’s where Build Insights, a powerful profiling tool, comes in. Activision, in collaboration with Xbox’s Advanced Technology Group (ATG), used Build Insights to break down performance bottlenecks, pinpoint inefficiencies, and cut build times by an incredible 50%. By tackling inlining issues, optimizing linker performance, and restructuring massive compilation processes, Activision and Microsoft’s MSVC team made critical changes that not only improved Call of Duty’s development cycle but also benefited other major projects like Fortnite, TensorFlow, and Forza. With Build Insights now integrated into Visual Studio, developers everywhere can take advantage of these optimizations to streamline their own workflows.

Key Takeaways:

  • Build Time Matters – Cutting just two minutes per build can save over an hour in a single workday, accelerating development cycles.

  • Build Insights Identified Major Bottlenecks:

    • Two specific source files slowed down 12% of the total build time.
    • Force inlining caused huge compile-time increases, with one function reaching 13,700 inlined calls, leading to a 70-second delay (optimized down to 1.5 seconds).
    • Whole Program Analysis inefficiencies slowed the process by 9x due to large dynamic initializers.
    • The linker was bottlenecked, running at only 60% multi-threaded efficiency and maxing out at 24 threads on a 64-core machine.
  • Optimizations That Made a Difference:

    • Disabling LTCG (Link Time Code Generation) for two symbols cut build time by 9 minutes.
    • MSVC compiler improvements shaved off another 5 minutes in Visual Studio 17.6+.
  • Impact Beyond Call of Duty – These enhancements also benefited development on Fortnite, Chrome, TensorFlow, and Forza, proving that optimizing build pipelines is critical across industries.

  • Build Insights in Visual Studio – Now fully integrated, allowing developers to analyze build performance without needing external profiling tools.

  • Best Practices for Developers:

    • Use Build Insights to find where your builds slow down.
    • Reduce excessive force inlining for better compile times.
    • Leverage Unity (Jumbo) builds to combine source files and cut build time.
    • Measure and refine continuously—optimization is an ongoing process.

Quote of the Day:

"We always knew build times were a challenge, but seeing the actual breakdown was eye-opening. Realizing that two files alone were holding up 12% of the entire build? That was a huge ‘aha’ moment."Rulon Raymond, Senior Director of Technology at Infinity Ward, Activision.

With these insights, game developers can spend less time waiting and more time creating, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in interactive entertainment. Ready to level up your build performance? Try Build Insights in Visual Studio today! 🎮🚀
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