wasm: 3x performance overhead of using webassembly in node 8

[trashhalo]

Im really not sure where to submit this issue, golang, node or chromium. So I am starting here. Feel free to close the issue and provide feedback if you think I should go elsewhere.

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

Master Head // b001ffb

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

N/A latest release does not have wasm.

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

wasm on linux
node 8.11

What did you do?

I built a connection from webassembly to node http and benchmarked it against native http version

recipe for reproducing
https://github.com/trashhalo/go_wasm_node_http

benchmark results
https://gist.github.com/trashhalo/b2f120fb9d20bd4003bf125c0200b601

node hello world
https://gist.github.com/thebinarypenguin/122cda772438c80ad683

What did you expect to see?

I expected a performance hit but not one so large

What did you see instead?

A 3x hit to performance of equivalent javascript code.

[trashhalo]

If you want to skip the docker build
app.wasm.gz

[trashhalo]

If you want to skip the docker build
app.wasm.gz

[agnivade]

If I understand this correctly, there is very little "actual" webassembly here. This is still running a node http server, in a very roundabout fashion. What I believe you are seeing is the js-wasm transfer overhead.

/cc @neelance

[agnivade]

If I understand this correctly, there is very little "actual" webassembly here. This is still running a node http server, in a very roundabout fashion. What I believe you are seeing is the js-wasm transfer overhead.

/cc @neelance

[neelance]

I bet a good portion of it is due to the setTimeout here:

go/misc/wasm/wasm_exec.js

Line 319 in 5cb1b17

setTimeout(this._resolveCallbackPromise, 0); // make sure it is asynchronous

Performance optimizations were not yet in scope.

[neelance]

I bet a good portion of it is due to the setTimeout here:

go/misc/wasm/wasm_exec.js

Line 319 in 5cb1b17

setTimeout(this._resolveCallbackPromise, 0); // make sure it is asynchronous

Performance optimizations were not yet in scope.

[trashhalo]

@neelance I played around to see if I can shave off time.

Removing setTimeout didn't change too much. I ran it through chrome profiler and it seems the hotspot is loading strings out of the memory blob and decoding them on the js side. The strings in my example on the method names i want to call on my js values.

Perhaps some sort of constant pool is in order?

[trashhalo]

@neelance I played around to see if I can shave off time.

Removing setTimeout didn't change too much. I ran it through chrome profiler and it seems the hotspot is loading strings out of the memory blob and decoding them on the js side. The strings in my example on the method names i want to call on my js values.

Perhaps some sort of constant pool is in order?

[neelance]

Perhaps some sort of constant pool is in order?

Maybe. We might even need some additional type like this:

idFoo := js.ID("foo")
for i := 0; i < 1000000; i++ {
   v.CallByID(idFoo)
}

This way, we could avoid referencing a method by string each time.
But we should wait with this until WebAssembly has its improved JS interop features ready.

[neelance]

Perhaps some sort of constant pool is in order?

Maybe. We might even need some additional type like this:

idFoo := js.ID("foo")
for i := 0; i < 1000000; i++ {
   v.CallByID(idFoo)
}

This way, we could avoid referencing a method by string each time.
But we should wait with this until WebAssembly has its improved JS interop features ready.

[trashhalo]

That would be cool!

I dont know how safe this is but I changed loadString in the wasm_exec to have a js side string cache. Its not bombing... and now im getting 8-10k requests/second, vs original implementation 5540.49.

const strCache = {};
const loadString = (addr) => {
	const saddr = getInt64(addr + 0);
	const cache = strCache[saddr.toString()];
	if (cache) {
		return cache;
	}
	const len = getInt64(addr + 8);
	const ret = decoder.decode(new DataView(this._inst.exports.mem.buffer, saddr, len));
	strCache[saddr.toString()] = ret;
	return ret;
}

[trashhalo]

That would be cool!

I dont know how safe this is but I changed loadString in the wasm_exec to have a js side string cache. Its not bombing... and now im getting 8-10k requests/second, vs original implementation 5540.49.

const strCache = {};
const loadString = (addr) => {
	const saddr = getInt64(addr + 0);
	const cache = strCache[saddr.toString()];
	if (cache) {
		return cache;
	}
	const len = getInt64(addr + 8);
	const ret = decoder.decode(new DataView(this._inst.exports.mem.buffer, saddr, len));
	strCache[saddr.toString()] = ret;
	return ret;
}