ChronoPath: Extreme Dynamic Pathfinding Engine

[ System Overview ]

Traditional heuristic searches (A*) or NavMesh structures frequently encounter CPU bottlenecks and Garbage Collection (GC) latency under massive entity concurrency. ChronoPath is a highly consistent native graph routing engine. Built on a C++ core, it offloads routing computations to unmanaged native memory space, bypassing the Unity Main Thread and managed heap.

[ Performance Baselines ]

(Evaluated on a 28,249-node, 66,722-edge topology using an AMD Ryzen 5 7500F — median of 15 cold-start runs)

- Distance Evaluation: Median 0.433 μs / query.

- Path Retrieval (Node Sequence): Median 0.333 ms / query.

- Dynamic Synchronization: Global graph reconstruction median ~800 ms. Supports background computation with non-blocking foreground query execution.

- System Throughput: Median 19,250,000 QPS under 12-thread concurrent execution.

- Memory Execution: 0-Byte GC allocation throughout standard query and retrieval cycles.

- Stress Test (10,000 Entities): On a 100×80 grid with dynamic exclusion zones, a baseline A* requires 14,002 ms; ChronoPath executes in 91 ms (~154× faster).

[ Core Mechanisms ]

- Decoupled Architecture: Separates cost evaluation from physical memory operations, perfectly suited for massive entity concurrency and simulations.

- Asynchronous State Replacement: Topology modifications (e.g., edge weight updates) trigger background index reconstruction. Foreground query execution continues uninterrupted; the updated state becomes active automatically upon completion.

- Concurrent Execution: The underlying native state supports concurrent reads. Integrates with standard C# Parallel.For loops and async Task scheduling.

- Input Normalization: Automatically sanitizes numeric inputs. Invalid floats (NaN) or out-of-range values are converted into physical discontinuities, maintaining mathematical stability.

[ 5-Step Quick Start (Beginner's Guide) ]

- Step 1 (Initialize): Call new ChronoPathAPI(...) once at startup to feed your map data to the engine.

- Step 2 (Translate IDs): Before querying, use GetInternalId() to translate your custom node IDs into the engine's Internal IDs.

- Step 3 (Query): Create a large reusable array (e.g., new uint[32768]), and pass it to RetrievePath(). Always use Math.Min(actualLen, array.Length) in your loop to safely read the result and prevent out-of-bounds crashes.

- Step 4 (Update Roads): If a road gets blocked, call UpdateEdgeWeight(), then run RebuildAll() in a background Task.Run so the map updates without freezing your game.

- Step 5 (Clean Up): When closing, wait for any background rebuild to finish (.Wait()), then call Dispose() to release native memory and prevent leaks.

[ IMPORTANT - READ BEFORE BUYING ]

- Target Platform: This release provides pre-compiled libraries (DLL) for Windows 64-bit (x86_64) Editor & Standalone ONLY.

- Hardware Recommendation: Standard x86_64 CPU. Processors with AVX2 support are recommended for peak performance, but are not strictly required.

- Unity Job System Restriction: Due to managed array interoperability constraints, the engine API does not support execution within the Unity Burst/Job System.

- Notice: Cross-platform binaries (Android/iOS/macOS/Linux) are NOT included in this package.

[ Contact & Opportunities ]

For cross-platform compilation support, source code licensing, enterprise-level integration, or career opportunities, please contact:

[email protected]