Does PixiJS Culling Scale Linearly with Scene Depth?

Answer

The culling traversal in PixiJS 7.x is a depth‑first walk of the display list, visiting each node once, so its time complexity is O(N) where N is the total number of objects, not the hierarchical depth.

Confirmed facts

• PixiJS culling checks the `visible` flag of every container and its children; containers with `visible = false` may skip their descendants, but the walk still visits each node.
• The algorithm’s linear scaling depends on object count; adding depth without adding objects does not increase traversal cost.
• Frame‑rate degradation beyond linear overhead occurs only when depth correlates with a higher object count or introduces additional GPU work such as shaders or overdraw.

Steps to verify

1. Log the number of rendered objects while increasing scene depth using PixiJS DevTools or a custom timer.
2. Measure frames per second for scenes with similar object counts but varying depth to see if performance diverges.
3. Use a profiler that separates CPU (culling) from GPU (shader, overdraw) time to isolate culling impact.

Missing diagnostic detail

Please provide the total object count at each depth level you plan to test; this will let us confirm whether the observed frame‑rate change is due to culling or to a rise in object count.