Chrome writeBuffer Performance

shuangliu

A simple data performance test between WebGL.bufferSubData and WebGPU.writeBuffer, try to simulate 1million transform matrix submit to GPU:

For my platform:
CPU: Intel i7 8700k
Mem: 16gb
GPU: Intel UHD 630
OS: Mac os 12.01
Chrome: 100.0.4862.3
Firefox: 99.0a1

for > 500k, take 1000k for heavy test

	Chrome 100	FireFox 99
WebGL	~13 ms	26-30 ms
writeBuffer	50~70 ms	26-30 ms
mapAsync/unmap	40-50 ms	70-100 ms

It is obviously that writeBuffer on Chrome is not ready for big dataset, basically 5-10x times slower than bufferSubData. Where mapAsync slightly faster than writeBuffer

But for <150k, writeBuffer is faster

	Chrome 100	FireFox 99
WebGL	2 - 4 ms	5 - 6 ms
writeBuffer	1 - 2 ms	~2 ms
mapAsync/unmap	5 -10 ms	60 - 100 ms

For small dataset, the mapAsync is slower …

When it comes to real application, WebGPU could get up to 20x slower then WebGL in Chrome, the device queue will be blocked while writing multi textrure/matrix/index/vertex ..

In our contrast test:
https://contrast.orillusion.com

Event though Orillusion gets much better overall FPS than Three instance draw, Orillusion actually takes 10x longer time than Three.js in sending data to gpu. When it comes to 300k boxes, Orillusion takes over 50-70ms on writeBuffer where Three only takes 3-4ms on bufferSubData.

This performance issue has been discussed for a long time, e.g. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1266727&q=writeBuffer&can=2
But it is still not addressed up to Chrome Canary v101

For now, the best practice in Chrome, try mapAsync if you are working on very big dataset, but may not get much helpful in real application. Use writeBuffer for simple relatively small data is always a good choice. But overall, they are not fast as WebGL so far

By the way, in our real practice, mapAsync may not a good choice for heavy rendering interactive Application.
The async callback/promise can be delayed from 4ms up to 20ms, such as mouse/keyboard/ajax/networking events, or other mapAsync jobs.

If you are working on a computing job, the delay is acceptable. But for real-time rendering, it can trigger a wired fps sometime, unstable frame change, hard to control from JS side. mapAsync vs writeBuffer is like relatively fast but unstable fps vs relatively slow but stable fps.

Welcome anyone try the test, and post your result.

shuangliu

We also opened an issue on chromium official forum

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1298309&q=writeBuffer&can=2

Welcome to submit your tests or ideas anytime to Chrome

shuangliu

Also tested on Chrome v98.0.4758.80 (x86_64)

	Chrome
WebGL	~15 ms
writeBuffer	60~70 ms
mapAsync/unmap	70~80 ms

The mapAsync is slower than writeBuffer

shabai517

For my platform:
CPU: Apple M1
Mem: 16gb
GPU: Apple M1
OS: Mac os 12.01
Chrome: 98.0.4758.80（正式版本） (arm64)

	Battery Only	Charging
WebGL	7~10 ms	7~10 ms
writeBuffer	28~30 ms	28~30 ms
mapAsync/unmap	31~32 ms	31~32 ms

shabai517

For my platform:
CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz 2.30 GHz
GPU: Inter(R) UHD Graphics / NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU
Mem: 16gb
OS: Win11
Chrome: 98.0.4758.102（正式版本） (64位)

	Battery Only	Charging
WebGL	27~30 ms	14~20 ms
writeBuffer	110~120 ms	49~53 ms
mapAsync/unmap	80~100 ms	50~57 ms

But only Inter(R) UHD Graphics works for the test, cannot change to RTX device

支阿怪

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支阿怪

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支阿怪

For my platform:
CPU: Intel i5 7200U
Mem: 8gb
GPU: Intel UHD 620
OS: Win10
Chrome: 100.0.4896.60（正式版本）（64 位）

Chrome
WebGL 20~ 70ms
writeBuffer 120~130 ms
mapAsync/unmap 70~90 ms

截图：

我的平台运行WebGL绘制速度不稳定，也可能是我的电脑配置低影响的，不过通过对比，WebGPU确实比GL慢许多，兴许底层优化不够好么? 看来WebGPU的性能值得优化提升！

Orillusion

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Chrome writeBuffer Performance