Subject: Java Virtual Machine Benchmark Times

From: "Rzepa, Henry" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 13:27:57 +0100

In implementing a simple little  Java applet;

http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/java/applets/f2m2f/

we noticed remarkable variation in the benchmark times. In
general Netscape 4 is the faster virtual machine, although MS
Internet Explorer 4 using the MS JIT option is only slightly
slower.  Earlier Version 3 browsers can be a lot slower.

To our surprise, we got the following typical selection
using Netscape 4.  This by the way is mostly for floating point operations.
Can anyone add new machine types to this list?  Java has been quite maligned
by developers for being slow, and this list perhaps confirms that
a  Java version of  Gaussian is probably not around the corner!

                                     Regular Bench   "Heavy Duty" Bench

Pentium Pro 200/NT           0.8s                   8s
Pentium 133/NT                  3
Pentium 75/Win95               4
Mac 8200/120                      8
SGI R10000 Power Ch      16 (??)

We have not been able to get good times on any  SGI machine.
Anyone with Linux times?

If anyone has any other benchmarks they could provide us with,
I will summarise for the list. Any explanation for the almost total
lack of correlation between processor performance for "regular
Comp chem" codes, and Java codes is also welcome. SGI, if you
folks are listening, would you like to comment?

Dr Henry Rzepa,  Dept. Chemistry,  Imperial College,  LONDON SW7 2AY;
mailto:[email-masked]; Tel  (44) 171 594 5774; Fax: (44) 171 594 5804.
URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/