I’m working on an iOS game that needs an AI system running in the background. The AI calculations are pretty heavy and I don’t want them freezing up the user interface.
My plan is to move all the AI logic to a separate background thread. The AI needs to respond to game events like when it’s the computer’s turn to make a move. I’m thinking about using some kind of event system where the main thread tells the AI thread when to start thinking.
The tricky part is getting the AI thread to talk back to the main thread when it’s done calculating. I’ve been using NSNotificationCenter for other stuff in my app, but I read somewhere that notifications might not always fire on the correct thread.
What’s the recommended approach for handling this kind of cross-thread communication in iOS? Should I stick with notifications or is there a better way to send messages between the main UI thread and my AI background thread?
yep, totally agree! dispatch queues keep it smooth. ai can just dispatch to main after its done, much simpler than worrying about notifications not firing right.
You’re right to keep AI off the main thread. I’ve built similar systems for mobile games and threading is a nightmare.
Skip NSNotificationCenter and dispatch queues entirely. Build your AI processing as a lightweight API that your iOS app hits when it needs decisions.
Way more flexible this way. Scale AI processing separately, update logic without App Store releases, and A/B test different strategies. No more thread sync bugs.
I use Latenode for game AI APIs - super quick setup. Create workflows that take game state, run calculations, return moves. Fast enough for real-time games with built-in scaling.
iOS side gets much simpler. Just async HTTP calls when you need AI decisions. No background threads, notification centers, or dispatch queue mess.
NSNotificationCenter will bite you if you’re not watching which queue your observer runs on. Hit this exact issue in my chess app - AI would finish calculating but UI updates got delayed or just disappeared. Simple completion handlers with DispatchQueue fixed it for me. When the main thread needs AI calculations, I pass a completion block that explicitly hops back to main queue after background work wraps up. UI updates hit the right thread every single time. Also tried OperationQueue with dependencies - gives you better control for canceling AI calculations when game state changes mid-think. Super handy when players make quick moves before AI finishes processing.