ABSTRACT
Seven data structures are examined by simulation and compared to find out which one should be used to implement the Future Event Set of an event driven discrete event simulator. The number of key comparisons and pointer references as well as the CPU time are measured. The effect of the different CPU architectures is examined. Various parameters of the model are changed to determine the characteristics of the studied event set algorithms.
We conclude that both the processor type and the distribution of the delay of the new events influence which data structure produces the best time properties. Though balanced trees proved to be quite good, heap and especially skip list was found to be significantly better on modern processor architectures.