Hello there!
I am writing some code that has a critical scaling requirement; think potentially 1GB+ lua heap memory usage. So, every saved byte counts!
I know Roblox lua has an improved VM, and we as a community don’t know a whole about how it functions on a low level. However, from WOW’s lua, this wiki post says that an empty table uses 40 bytes and resizes to double its size whenever the table capacity exceeds its allocated memory. So, we can use that as a baseline.
My question is simple: Are references to metatables treated as another element in the collection from a memory standpoint?
If not, then what is the memory consideration beyond the allocated memory for the metatable itself?