Is it best to handle ALL operations on points in the main animation loop?

Questions
1

Let’s say I have a particle sim using a Points object with ~10,000 points.

animate() {
requestAnimationFrame(animate);
for(let i = 0; i < Particles.total; i++) {		
  //code goes here			
  this.points.geometry.getAttribute('position').needsUpdate = true; 
  this.points.geometry.getAttribute('color').needsUpdate = true; 
},
}

So, that loop is always firing in order to visually update the particles.

But let’s say the colors only update periodically. Is it more efficient to write a function like

updateAllColors() {
for(let i = 0; i < Particles.total; i++) {		
  //change each point color here..
}

or to set a boolean like “needsColorUpdate = true”, and then inside my animation loop, whenever that flag is true, handle the color change there?

Basically, what’s better: adding a redundant iteration loop that only happens once in a while, OR, adding a boolean check that is constantly firing in the animation loop (even if the color update only happens once)?

2

nothing that is redundant should suck up cpu. if you can schedule the thing away and only set it when you need to this is surely better.