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GDC Presentation Reviews Sep 2, 2025

GDC Europe 2013: "Toolchain Independent Distributed Compilation" by Dietmar Hauser (@rattenhirn?) of Sproing Interactive Media GmbH https://gdcvault.com/play/1019295/Toolchain-Independent-Distributed

This was okay. They created a distributed build system that works for any console SDK. It was built for a small office of 34 people, where each person runs a screensaver on Windows that acts as a compile server.

1/3

Toolchain Independent Distributed Compilation

In 2012, a crack programming team set out on a mission to speed up compile times for C++ projects, utilizing the untapped power of idle workstations. With a lot of experience in multi-platform development, the cumulative pain of years of watching...

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Dietmar Hauser Sep 2, 2025

@GDCPresoReviews It'sa indeed me!
Here are the slides: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/toolchain-independent-distributed-compilation/66251001
The presentation was meant for people who want to build this themselves, or maybe to make it a "joint venture".
In the meantime Fastbuild and other solutions have arrived that can do everything this could do.

Toolchain Independent Distributed Compilation

This document discusses toolchain independent distributed compilation. It explores previous solutions like IncrediBuild and distcc, and proposes a plan to analyze source files to find dependencies and distribute compilation across servers while caching inputs and outputs. Key challenges include precompiled headers, preprocessor directives, and debug information storing absolute paths. The author details solutions using sandboxing software. Benchmarking shows speedups of up to 17x for large codebases. Future work could involve distributed linking and unifying with LLVM/Clang. - Download as a PPT, PDF or view online for free

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GDC Presentation Reviews

@rattenhirn right, these other solutions are the main reason I didn’t rate this presentation higher. This is a problem the entire industry has, and making a new solution in 2025 wouldn’t be the right engineering decision when confronted with this problem.

(I rate these presentations in the context of watching them now, in 2025, not in the context of when they were presented.)

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Dietmar Hauser Sep 3, 2025

@GDCPresoReviews I understand that, that's why I didn't complain about the rating.
Back then there was Incredibuild, which only supported MSVC and was very expensive, and distcc, which only supported GCC and, I think, was not available on Windows.
IIRC we looked into improving distcc, but it was too tied up in its eco system (gcc, linux).
We also already had a solution that could run all the compilers we needed locally to make them use all CPU cores (also not a common feature in the naughties).