Artificial Intelligence for Games, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9

Execution Management

There are only limited processor resources available to a game. Traditionally, most of these have been used to create great graphics: the primary driving force in mass market games. The processor budget given to AI developers is growing steadily as most of the graphics get passed on to the graphics card. It is not unheard of for AI to have more than 50% of the processor time, although 5 to 25% is a more common range.

Even with more execution time available, processor time can easily get eaten up by pathfinding, complex decision making, and tactical analysis. AI is also inherently inconsistent. Sometimes you need ...