Actionscript vs Playscript(compiler) vs C#(Monotouch) vs ObjC

This is the test to check relative difference in performance on mobile device.

I compared:

Actionscript 3 code compiled with ASC2 (AIR 3.6)
Actionscript 3 code compiled with Playscript-mono compiler
C# code compiled with Playscript-mono compiler (Monotouch)
Objective C code

Results (on iPad 3):

AS3 (ASC2) – 390 milliseconds
AS3 (Playscript) – 810 milliseconds
C# – 800 milliseconds
ObjC – 460 milliseconds

Objective C

- (void)testCos
{
NSDate *date = [NSDate date];

for (int j = 0; j &lt; 2000000; j++) {
self.d = cos(j);
}

float timePassed_ms = [date timeIntervalSinceNow] * -1000;

self.myLbl.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%f", timePassed_ms];
}

- (void)testCos

{

NSDate *date = [NSDate date];

for (int j = 0; j < 2000000; j++) {

self.d = cos(j);

}

float timePassed_ms = [date timeIntervalSinceNow] * -1000;

self.myLbl.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%f", timePassed_ms];

}

private void cos ()
{
DateTime t = DateTime.Now;

for (int j = 0; j &lt; 2000000; j++) {
d = System.Math.Cos(j);
}

TimeSpan myDateResult = DateTime.Now - t;

myLbl.Text = myDateResult.TotalMilliseconds.ToString();
}

private void cos ()

{

DateTime t = DateTime.Now;

for (int j = 0; j < 2000000; j++) {

d = System.Math.Cos(j);

}

TimeSpan myDateResult = DateTime.Now - t;

myLbl.Text = myDateResult.TotalMilliseconds.ToString();

}

Actionscript 3

public function cos():void
{
var t:Number = getTimer();

for(var j:int = 0; j &lt; 2000000; j++)
{
d = Math.cos(j);
}

time = getTimer() - t;
}

public function cos():void

{

var t:Number = getTimer();

for(var j:int = 0; j < 2000000; j++)

{

d = Math.cos(j);

}

time = getTimer() - t;

}

7 Comments

pro

April 11, 2013 at 11:23 · Reply

Could you please add Haxe to your benchmark?
Ed

April 29, 2013 at 11:52 · Reply

So, asc2.0 is faster then ObjC???
Do you try to test +,-,*,/,sqrt?
- ingwe
  
  April 29, 2013 at 15:26 · Reply
  
  Well, I do not think so. First of all, the test is very synthetic and does not represent real-world situations. I just wanted to perform very general quick test, to get the overall idea of performance between Actionscript and Playscript (and others are for reference). Plus, I am not ObjC developer, and my sample code may not be optimized (for example, i found out that the performance of that ObjC code can be much slower/faster depending on the way you declare variable). But I believe that ASC2 is very optimized for simple Math computations.
André Caribé

May 9, 2013 at 00:41 · Reply

Why in C # and ObjC versions there is an impression (and cast) the value and AS3 version will not even be output?
- ingwe
  
  May 9, 2013 at 01:16 · Reply
  
  I am not sure I understand you. I see no casting in the code. As to the output in AS3 version – the output is saved in “time” variable, which can be accessed in any way you want (you can trace it or put into label).
  - dto
    
    August 15, 2013 at 11:14 · Reply
    
    …i think he refers to the EXTRA call in
    Objective-C
    self.myLbl.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@”%f”, timePassed_ms];
    
    C#
    myLbl.Text = myDateResult.TotalMilliseconds.ToString();
    
    To make it fair, why not do a
    AS3
    var string_Time:String = time.toString();
    
    to have that extra call in AS3?
    
    Or to remove the extra calls from C# and Objective-C, and get the result from outside the function cos?
- ryan
  
  April 9, 2015 at 22:55 · Reply
  
  I dont think it matters as the impression (and cast) happen after the time is calculated. Using the value elsewhere will not change the value.