R4.2.3 slower than R4.1.3 on Windows only
On 4/18/23 14:16, Fredrik Skoog wrote:
Hi,
If you run:
library(microbenchmark)
m <- matrix(rnorm(28000000), nrow=7000, byrow=TRUE)
rownames(m) <- rownames(m, do.NULL = FALSE, prefix = "this is a row name")
colnames(m) <- colnames(m, do.NULL = FALSE, prefix = "this is a column
name")
microbenchmark(df <- as.data.frame(m, keep.rownames=TRUE), times=10)
The results shows worse performance in R4.2.3 (also bigger variations)
compared to v4.1.3. Also v4.2.0 shows worse performance, so it looks like
it's 4.2.0 and later that has this issue. On Linux it's all good, so it
seems to be a Windows only issue.
Version 4.2.3
==============
Run 1
------
Unit: seconds
expr min lq mean
median uq max neval
df <- as.data.frame(m, keep.rownames = TRUE) 1.324839 2.411304 2.760553
2.593452 3.290228 4.263175 10
Run 2
------
Unit: milliseconds
expr min lq mean
median uq max neval
dt <- as.data.frame(m, keep.rownames = TRUE) 967.5651 1054.8 1155.453
1149.767 1194.742 1451.14 10
Version 4.1.3
===============
Run 1:
------
Unit: milliseconds
expr min lq mean
median uq max neval
df <- as.data.frame(m, keep.rownames = TRUE) 274.5478 298.2477 320.3988
320.9164 342.8119 375.6841 10
Run 2:
-------
Unit: milliseconds
expr min lq mean
median uq max neval
df <- as.data.frame(m, keep.rownames = TRUE) 278.5369 310.0312 313.0745
313.3275 320.0294 343.7539 10
I have tried it on two different machines, with the same result.
-----
The above example is just trying to do something simple that exposes the
issue, but as.data.table behaves similarly. Also it shows huge variations
in time. We had a script that ran in 12 minutes in v3.6.3 and it took 18
min with v4.2.3, with v4.1.3 it takes around 9 minutes.
Has anyone else noticed this? I noticed in the release notes that Doug Leas
malloc was replaced in v4.2.0 and that's a windows only change.
Thanks for the report. I confirm the slowdown with this example and I confirm it is due to the change in memory allocator: I've switched my working copy of R-devel back to the original version of dlmalloc, which removed the slowdown. Windows 10 (build 19041 and later) allows to choose a more recent SegmentHeap allocator instead of the default Low Fragmentation Heap allocator. It gives almost the same performance with this example as the original version of dlmalloc, without the maintenance overhead of using a custom allocator, so this might be one possible solution. Best Tomas
Best regards, Fredrik [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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