Release and Debug, what's the difference? Created 4 years ago2020-02-21 00:24:12 UTC by Cabo Fiambre

As the title says, what's the difference whitin the both?

Debug mode won't perform certain optimisations (such as inlining functions), in order to make debugging easier. It also defines the DEBUG and _DEBUG macros which you can use to run code only in debug mode, like so:

#if _DEBUG
    ALERT( at_error, "This code won't run in release mode!\n" );
#endif

Release mode is intended for the "final build" of your mod that you release, which will enable performance optimisations and disable the debug-only code or messages.

If you're using the standard unmodified SDK, compiling in release mode doesn't make much of a big difference - but Spirit of Half-Life will do things in debug mode that you definitely don't want in release mode, such as showing sparks above an NPC when they don't have a valid schedule.

As a general rule:

• Compile in debug mode during development
• Compile in release mode for test/final release