This is a collection of benchmarks implemented in various .NET environments: .NET, Unity's default runtime (Mono), IL2CPP, and Burst. In particular this focuses on loop vectorization and math. Two of the benchmarks (Fibonacci, SieveOfEratosthenes, Mandelbrot) are from BurstBenchmarks. All benchmarks use the recommended types for each platform (UnityEngine.* for non-Burst Unity, Unity.Mathematics.* for Burst, and System.Numerics.* for plain .NET) including the benchmarks ported from BurstBenchmarks. All these tests are single-threaded.
These instructions are written assuming you are running Windows on an x86_64 CPU.
All commands are executed from the repository root.
Build the Unity project by opening the Unity project and use the Build > Windows menu item or this command:
"C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2023.1.13f1\Editor\Unity.exe" -batchmode -nographics -quit -projectPath unity\DotNetBurstComparison -executeMethod Editor.Build.BuildWindows -logfile unity\DotNetBurstComparison\Builds\Windows\log.txt
To run the Mono Unity program:
.\unity\DotNetBurstComparison\Builds\Windows\Mono\UnityBench.exe -batchmode -nographics -logfile unity\DotNetBurstComparison\Builds\Windows\Mono\log.txt
To run the IL2CPP Unity program:
.\unity\DotNetBurstComparison\Builds\Windows\IL2CPP\UnityBench.exe -batchmode -nographics -logfile unity\DotNetBurstComparison\Builds\Windows\IL2CPP\log.txt
The results will be in the log files in the commands above. Sadly Unity does not write logs to the command-line on Windows. (at the time of writing)
Build the .NET project with this command:
dotnet build .\dotnet\DotNetBurstComparison\DotNetBurstComparison.sln -c Release
To run the .NET program:
dotnet dotnet\DotNetBurstComparison\DotNetBurstComparison.Dotnet\bin\Release\net8.0\DotNetBurstComparison.Dotnet.dll
The results will be printed to standard out.
Each benchmark is run twice to let each runtime warm up. These results are from the second run. Smaller values are better.
The computer running these tests:
- CPU: Intel Core i9 9900K @ 5GHz (all cores)
- Memory: 32GB DDR4 @ 3200MHz
- OS: Windows 10 Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045
TLDR for SIMD workloads: IL2CPP+Burst > .NET8 == Mono+Burst > IL2CPP > Mono
Surprisingly .NET 8 can be competitive with Mono+Burst, except in SieveOfEratosthenes for some reason. (not sure why)
IL2CPP+Burst is crazy fast. If you don't need modding support for your Unity game and you are using Mono+Burst it seems like a no-brainer to switch to IL2CPP+Burst. (as long as you can support the more complicated build environment)
Unity's default Mono (without Burst) runtime is particularly atrocious. It would be wonderful to see Unity update to .NET 8 but I understand that it is mre complicated than just flipping a switch. And they have already announced they are moving in that direction.