[squeak-dev] Raspberry Pi Performance (was: Bibi, a Scratch port to recent Squeak)

Juan Vuletich (mail lists) juanlists at jvuletich.org
Sat Feb 23 20:20:48 UTC 2013


Quoting Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>:

>
> On 23.02.2013, at 19:24, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 23-02-2013, at 5:58 AM, "Juan Vuletich (mail lists)"  
>> <juanlists at jvuletich.org> wrote:
>>> What tinyBenchmarks performance do you get?
>>
>> My Pi does about 42Mbc/s and 1.4Msn/s
>
> Under Linux, using the pre-installed Squeak VM and the Cuis image, I  
> get 35 Mbytecodes/s and 1.0 Msends/s.
>
> Guess the Linux VM could use some of your ARM-Fu?
>
>>> I use Cuis all the time on an Atom netbook (Cog, 29Msends/sec,  
>>> 180Mbytecodes/sec). Cuis is nice to use here.
>>>
>>> From time to time, I run it on my XO (300MHz Geode, Cog,  
>>> 6.2Msends/sec, 39Mbytecodes/sec). Cuis is pefectly usable here.  
>>> Sometimes I also run it on a PIII with a CPUKiller app, that  
>>> brings performance down to XO levels.
>>>
>>> Using slower machines is really useful. It really helped me find  
>>> code that really deserved some optimization. The result is that,  
>>> even if it looks cool, Cuis is usable on slow hardware?
>>
>> Try to get a Pi sometime. You'll adore the sheer cuteness of having  
>> a machine that small and raw to play with. Download RISC OS and  
>> enjoy a *really fun* operating system as well.
>
> I'll stick to Linux for the time being :)
>
>>> Have you tried Cuis on the Pi? Could you please do it and comment  
>>> on the experience?
>> It is certainly a good approach; even on the Pi it is bearable. I'm  
>> doing some work on how to boost the bitBLT performance right now  
>> (which is not so hot) and that would make a big difference.  
>> Eventually I hope to get the Cog vm working on it as well.
>> But the real key is always better written systems code. Morphic has  
>> always seemed to have horrible scaling issues - with one window  
>> open it can be ok, open a dozen and     it    gri    nds   to        
>>    a      h h     aa    l     t.
>> A long time ago Andreas made a benchmark that timed opening a  
>> couple of dozen browsers and it was possible even on a fast machine  
>> (of the day, so say 25% of the fast machines now) to see how the  
>> last few took so much longer. If anyone can fix that problem life  
>> would be a lot better. By contrast, open an MVC project and use a  
>> couple of dozen browsers. No performance problem there...
>
> Well, under MVC, all windows except the active one are dead. In  
> Morphic they're live.
>
> Which is not to say this couldn't be improved: in the Scratch image,  
> opening a browser is almost instantaneous (Scratch: 0.x secs, Etoys:  
> 3 secs, Squeak: 3 secs, Cuis: 6 secs).

Yes. In tests I just did on my slow setup (32mbytecodes/s,  
1.3msends/sec), Cuis 4.1 is 14 times slower than Cuis 4.0. This is due  
to Float local coordinates in Morphic.

>>> BTW, if needed, you can evaluate 'Preferences slowMachine' to  
>>> trade looks for responsiveness.
>>
>> That does help a little. It does still take a good 1sec+ top open  
>> the workspace text editing menu and at least 5 sec to open a browser.
>
>
> Makes no difference AFAICT.
>
> - Bert -

Checked it. There might be a slight difference, but not much. true.

Thanks for testing. Bottom line: Avoid Cuis 4.1 on slow hardware.  
Prefer Cuis 4.0.

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich



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