Compares two state update strategies for GPU optimization:
- Strategy 1: Array of Structs (AoS) - immutable elements with embedded state
- Strategy 2: Structure of Arrays (SoA) - separate geometry and mutable state
Validates that SoA achieves 5-10× better memory bandwidth due to coalesced
access patterns. Benchmarks both CPU and GPU implementations with detailed
performance metrics including bandwidth utilization.
Key findings:
- SoA enables coalesced memory access (consecutive threads → consecutive memory)
- AoS suffers from pointer chasing and non-coalesced access
- SoA has zero allocations (in-place updates vs element reconstruction)
- Tests with 10k, 100k, 1M elements showing scalability
Jukka Aho