Alternatives to C/C++

Instead of sticking with C/C++ for performance consider:
1.Free Pascal -Small memory use,very fast, easy debug
2.OCaml - medium memory use, fast,very terse, functional and secure.
3.FreeBasic - very fast,easy to use, low memory use, supports QBasic code as dialect. Other Basics to consider: PureBasic/Gambas/PowerBASIC
4.Digital Mars D- fast, easy to write and debug, large library, transition from C/C++ much easier.Garbage collection can be turned off.

>>50
True.
Just trigger the GC before doing something resource-intensive, shut it off, do your work, turn it back on and collect when you're finished.

In context of a game, you'd explicitly run it during transitions between levels, after a cutscene, etc. There's tons of times when running it won't affect the user experience; people who complain about GC'd languages are naive to think that they're losing any sort of control by letting the computer keep track of allocations. You're actually gaining control and flexibility, because you suddenly don't have to burden yourself with making sure memory is always free()'d when you don't need it anymore but never when you still do. That's a tedious task, and exactly the sort that the computer is better at than the programmer.