- #106
Chalnoth
Science Advisor
- 6,197
- 449
Right, but if I store iteration n-2, then I don't have to store iteration n-1, I can compute iteration n directly from iteration n-2. In fact, computer games generally have to be designed to accept different time durations between the iterations, because the amount of time used to compute the next frame can vary significantly both between computers, and between frames.Tanelorn said:Consider the video game analogy, all that is required to compute iteration n is iteration n-1. It is not necessary to store iteration n-2, or any older iteration data, so in an efficient system any data older than iteration n-1 would be discarded as unnecessary and therefore no longer exist.
In principle, it would be entirely possible to design an animation where the computer only stores the initial conditions, and every new iteration it computes the current iteration from those initial conditions directly, instead of doing it based upon the previous iteration. In practice this isn't done because computer programs use a number of approximations that would make such large time deltas unworkable.