performance

processor

Pentium-M Home Theater PC

I recently built a new, much lower wattage home theater PC using the Pentium-M processor. The P-M was, until very recently, a mobile-only part. And that’s why it’s ideal for HTPC duties – it offers very high levels of performance at an astonishingly modest power draw. For example, per

By Jeff Atwood ·
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microsoft

Virtual PC 2004 tips

I’m working with Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2004 again. Since the last time I discussed VPC, Microsoft released the essential Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1, which addresses a lot of outstanding issues, particularly compatibility with SP2 and newer AMD/Intel processors. If you start delving into VPC, I

By Jeff Atwood ·
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performance

Micro-Optimization and Meatballs

In my previous entry on the real cost of performance, there were some complaints that my code’s slow and it sucks. If I had a nickel every time someone told me that, I could have retired years ago. Let’s take a look at the specific complaint that the

By Jeff Atwood ·
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asp.net

The Antidote to ASP.NET Smart Navigation

One of the issues I have with ASP.NET is that it is postback crazy. Virtually nothing of significance can be done in pure browser client code with ASP.NET out of the box.* You have to Submit() the specially formed ASP.NET HTML form to the server, and all

By Jeff Atwood ·
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java

Java vs. .NET RegEx performance

I was intrigued when I saw a cryptic reference to “the lackluster RegEx performance in .NET 1.1” on Don Park’s blog. Don referred me to this page, which displays some really crazy benchmark results from a Java regex test class – calling C#’s regex support “20 times slower

By Jeff Atwood ·
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optimization

Why aren’t my optimizations optimizing?

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. – Donald Knuth Michael Teper’s blog has a great post about a bread and butter optimization scenario involving string replacement. After implementing three logical alternatives, Mike looks at the benchmark

By Jeff Atwood ·
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.net

Performance: Remoting vs. Web Services

This question comes up periodically, and Microsoft has a fairly definitive whitepaper on the topic, Performance Comparison: .NET Remoting vs. ASP.NET Web Services. The article has a number of charts with crazy legends, so let me provide a better one: ASMXWeb ServiceWS_TCP_BinaryWindows Service remoting host, TCP protocol,

By Jeff Atwood ·
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idisposable

Just Say No to Finalization!

I am working with some classes that wrap unmanaged APIs, so I have to be concerned with releasing the resources associated with these APIs – e.g., the IDisposable interface. I was a little confused about the distinction between Dispose() and Finalize(), and in my research I found this article by

By Jeff Atwood ·
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processor

Athlon 64: Developer's Choice

I've commented on .NET compiler performance before, and I recently uncovered another Xbit Labs article that confirms my previous conclusion: For compiling .NET code, the Athlon 64 is 33% faster than a Pentium 4 of the same speed. That's a significant productivity boost for a developer.

By Jeff Atwood ·
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.net

.NET Compiler Performance

After working with VB6 and "classic" ASP for so long, I got spoiled with effectively nonexistent compile times. Part of that, of course, is due to how old the environments are – or were. I remember using VB5 shortly after its release on Pentium 1 class hardware, and it

By Jeff Atwood ·
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