Optimizing ruby constant array data

Ruby
1

I decided it was time to do a little profiling, and am so glad that it’s
built
right into Ruby. My biggest problem seems to be array access:

% cumulative self self total
time seconds seconds calls ms/call ms/call name
36.02 3.35 3.35 350 9.57 15.10 String#each_byte
10.45 4.32 0.97 27230 0.04 0.04 Array#[]
6.73 4.95 0.63 16100 0.04 0.04 GL.Vertex

I’ll eventually go to display-lists or similar in OpenGL, but I was
wondering
if I could optimize this any further?

def draw_string( string )
size = font.height
x = 0

GL::Enable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
GL::Begin( GL::QUADS )
string.each_byte do |char|
offset = char - 32
GL::TexCoord2f( @tex_coords_left[offset], @tex_coords_top[offset]
);
GL::Vertex( x, 0 )
GL::TexCoord2f( @tex_coords_left[offset],
@tex_coords_bottom[offset] );
GL::Vertex( x, size )
GL::TexCoord2f( @tex_coords_right[offset],
@tex_coords_bottom[offset] );
GL::Vertex( x + size, size )
GL::TexCoord2f( @tex_coords_right[offset], @tex_coords_top[offset]
);
GL::Vertex( x + size, 0 )
x += @sizes[char-32][0]
end
GL::End()
GL::Disable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
end

Thanks,
Mike

2

Mike A. [email protected] writes:

I’ll eventually go to display-lists or similar in OpenGL, but I was
GL::TexCoord2f( @tex_coords_left[offset], @tex_coords_top[offset] );
GL::Disable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
end

Perhaps use #at instead of #[] ? Using texture coord arrays might
help too. But if that’s really only 10% of the total time, I don’t
think it’s going to make too much difference…

3

Thanks for the feedback. at() didn’t seem to do much, but I just
remembered
the glCallLists() trick:

def draw_string( string )
GL::Enable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
GL::CallLists( string )
GL::Disable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
end

Oh yea :slight_smile:
Mike

4

Mike A. [email protected] wrote:

I decided it was time to do a little profiling, and am so glad that
it’s built right into Ruby. My biggest problem seems to be array
access:
% cumulative self self total
time seconds seconds calls ms/call ms/call name
36.02 3.35 3.35 350 9.57 15.10 String#each_byte
10.45 4.32 0.97 27230 0.04 0.04 Array#[]
6.73 4.95 0.63 16100 0.04 0.04 GL.Vertex

This looks rather like the code in each_byte was the problem. Notice
that
self seconds for Array#[] is just 0.97 - while String#each_byte consumes
3.35. Or did I miss something?

Kind regards

robert
5

On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 11:33:43AM +0900, Mike A. wrote:

offset = char - 32

GL::End()
GL::Disable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
end

This should be a bit faster:

def draw_string( string )
size = font.height
x = 0

GL::Enable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
GL::Begin( GL::QUADS )

lvars are often faster than dvars …

char = offset = left = top = bottom = right = 0
string.each_byte do |char|
offset = char - 32

# ... and also faster than ivars (array access vs. hash lookup)
# we save an extra method call too
top = @tex_coords_top[offset]
bottom = @tex_coords_bottom[offset]
left = @tex_coords_left[offset]
right = @tex_coords_right[offset]

GL::TexCoord2f( left, top );
GL::Vertex(        x,    0 )
GL::TexCoord2f( left, bottom );
GL::Vertex(        x, size )
GL::TexCoord2f( right, bottom );
GL::Vertex( x + size, size )
GL::TexCoord2f( right, top );
GL::Vertex( x + size,    0 )
x += @sizes[char-32][0]

end
GL::End()
GL::Disable( GL::TEXTURE_2D )
end

You can’t expect much from such micro-optimizations, but they do help a
bit:

RUBY_VERSION # => “1.8.4”
require ‘benchmark’

puts “ivar vs. lvar”
Benchmark.bm(10) do |bm|
o = Class.new do
def initialize(ivar); @iv = ivar end
def using_ivar; 1000000.times { @iv; @iv; @iv; @iv; @iv} end # !>
useless use of a variable in void context
def using_lvar; iv = @iv; 1000000.times { iv; iv; iv; iv; iv} end #
!> useless use of a variable in void context
def using_ivar2
1000000.times {
@iv; @iv; @iv; @iv; @iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
@iv; @iv; @iv; @iv; @iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
@iv; @iv; @iv; @iv; @iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
@iv; @iv; @iv; @iv; @iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
}
end
def using_lvar2
iv = @iv; 1000000.times {
iv; iv; iv; iv; iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
iv; iv; iv; iv; iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
iv; iv; iv; iv; iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
iv; iv; iv; iv; iv # !> useless use of a variable in void
context
}
end
end.new(1)
bm.report(“ivar”){ o.using_ivar }
bm.report(“lvar”){ o.using_lvar }
bm.report(“ivar (x4)”){ o.using_ivar2 }
bm.report(“lvar (x4)”){ o.using_lvar2 }
end

puts “dvar vs. lvar”

Benchmark.bm(10) do |bm|
bm.report(“dvar”){ 1000000.times{|i| i = 1} }
j = 0
bm.report(“lvar”){ 1000000.times{|j| j = 1} }
end

>> ivar vs. lvar

>> user system total real

>> ivar 0.850000 0.000000 0.850000 ( 0.886111)

>> lvar 0.530000 0.000000 0.530000 ( 0.529777)

>> ivar (x4) 2.900000 0.010000 2.910000 ( 2.998297)

>> lvar (x4) 1.580000 0.000000 1.580000 ( 1.645420)

>> dvar vs. lvar

>> user system total real

>> dvar 0.380000 0.000000 0.380000 ( 0.390633)

>> lvar 0.360000 0.000000 0.360000 ( 0.374979)

Access and assignment to lvars will often be faster than to dvars,
especially if:

  • you’re accessing a dynamic variable from an enclosing lexical scope
  • there are lots of variables
    foo { a = 1; bar{ b1 = 2; …; b100 = 100; baz{ c = 3; foobar{ a } }
    } }
    =====

Whereas lvars are subscripted directly from an array, dvars are looked
up
linearly.