Drawing a CGLayer outside the method drawRect: faster?

Question

I'm not really sure, what am I asking...

...but if make layer composites in separate methods, and draw them to the view also outside of the drawRect: method... ...then could my app performance get raised?

I'm actually subclassed a puzzlePiece:UIView class, where the puzzlepiece gets rendered, but the redraw invoked now with setNeedsDisplay since the drawing implementation takes place in the drawRect: method. The app lags.

Can I improve performance if I get rid of the so called drawRect: method?

The thing wants to get implemented: http://gotoandplay.freeblog.hu/

Answer 1

I think what you want to do here is to have a very single, simple UIView that covers the entire play area. Then put each tile in a CALayer, and attach all the CALayers to the UIView and move them around and rotate them. Then there should not need to be a -drawRect: at all. You'll do all your drawing in your layers, and you should get the best performance that way. CALayer is similar to UIView in principle, but much lighter weight (faster and simpler). CALayer is basically a view that can only draw; it can't handle touches or events. It's parent view has to do that for it. But that let's CALayer be much faster.