title: ctypes vs C extension
body: <p>I have a few functions written in C for a game project. These functions get called quite a lot (about 2000-4000 times per second). The functions are written in C for raw speed.</p>
  
  <p>Now, the easiest way for me to include these functions into Python is to use <code>ctypes</code>. The alternative is to write a C extension to Python around these functions (which takes quite a bit of extra effort). So I wondered, not including the initial loading of the DLL, how big is the overhead of <code>ctypes</code>?</p>
  
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  <p>I'm using Python 2.7 (the standard CPython release), and I do not want to use an external library like Cython.</p>
  
  <p>I know this question has been asked before, but I haven't seen much information about the performance comparison between the two options.</p>