Why does Creating a New Instance have such an Overhead?

[Calloway]

Why does creating new instances create a big overhead, especially on older computers and laptops?

It's also very apparent in lower cored systems like dual core and in laptops with low clock speeds.

[JohnM]

I suspect what your'e seeing may be the result of displaying a thumbnail for the new instance, rather than creating the instance itself. It's also slow to add an instance to the stage.

One way to address the thumbnail slowdown is to select a different class before running the code the generates new instances. For example, in the "Rabbits and Grass" example, things run faster if you select the "Rabbit" class instead of the "Grass" class.