String changes make Firefox 3% faster
Darin checked in some major string changes a few hours ago (231995). Estimations based on Firefox Tinderbox data:
| Measure | Windows (gabrielle) | Linux (redwood) |
|---|---|---|
| Startup (Ts) | 3.1% faster (noisy data) | 3.4% faster (noisy data) |
| New window (Txul) | 3.8% faster | 3.0% faster |
| Page load (Tp) | 2.6% faster | 3.3% faster |
| Code size (Z) | 2.1% smaller | 1.2% smaller |
(Darin made similar estimations and included data for Seamonkey.)
I plan to compare download size and memory use once a new official build is avaiable.
February 19th, 2004 at 7:15 am
Awesome! Are we going to see more string changes to that will provide further speed boosts?
February 19th, 2004 at 7:34 am
A little optimization here, a little optimization there, and when we reach one dot oh Firefox will probably outspeed a preloaded IE ;)
(I really shouldn’t follow the daily updates, takes all the fun away from the big releases, dammit)
(dwunk, but, then again, that’s always)
February 19th, 2004 at 8:23 am
Damn fine work as always ….
February 19th, 2004 at 8:24 am
What’s funny is that now people can actually say “It just feels faster!” — and be right!
February 19th, 2004 at 8:27 am
What’s also a bit amazing is that this was all done by changing 8 lines, and replacing 2 declarations with 1.
(Yes, I know we are now using a different data type that is written better, but where was that checked in? Was it always there and we just now hooked it up?)
February 19th, 2004 at 12:11 pm
Mike I think you’re just looking at the stuff that landed in the Firebird specific part of the code, this change mainly affected the underlying Mozilla code:
http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?who=darin%25meer.net&date=explicit&mindate=02%2F18%2F2004&maxdate=02%2F19%2F2004
11215 lines added, 5120 lines removed.
February 19th, 2004 at 1:57 pm
Do you know if today’s builds have these fixes?
February 19th, 2004 at 1:57 pm
Do today’s unofficial builds contain these changes?
February 19th, 2004 at 2:19 pm
Yes, there are more string changes coming.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=234864
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232927
February 19th, 2004 at 3:48 pm
On Windows:
* The download size only decreased by 0.5% (33KB).
* Memory usage was too noisy for me to tell whether there was a difference.