Speeding up the Unreal editor by… not using unnecessarily secure hash methods
Summary
The article analyzes optimizing Unreal Engine startup by swapping a cryptographic hash SHA1 for a faster non-cryptographic hash (xxHash) when hashing shader sources. It presents benchmarking data showing an eightfold speedup and describes code changes and a pull request that was accepted. It also discusses considerations for future hashing algorithm changes by wrapping in a new struct (FShaderHash).