WebAssembly Load Times and Performance

UNITY3D.COM

The Unity framework has recently switched from asm.js to WebAssembly. This highly detailed blog post looks at the impact this has had on application load times and performance - with some fantastic results!

Most metrics show a significant improvement with the move to WebAssembly, although there is significant variability between browsers. This is a sign of the immaturity of the WebAssembly VM / runtime. I’d expect the performance metrics to converge over time.

This blog also takes a look at the impact of LiftOff, the recently introduced tiered WebAssembly compiler within Google Chrome. With tiered compilation, your WebAssembly code is rapidly compiled with a non-optimised compiler in order to get it up and running quickly. The results are impressive, with load times reduced by a factor of x10.

An n-body simulator

GITHUB.IO

This fun little demo shows an n-body simulator, written in C++, and compiled to WebAssembly. It has a whole host of ‘galactic’ simulations!

An Interactive Go REPL in the Browser

RICE.SH

WebAssembly is intended to allow you to compile a wide range of languages so that they can run in the web. Once you can do this, you can compile their compiler / interpreters, allowing you to host the language itself within the browser. Hours of fun!

And Finally

Like WebAssembly? like LEGO? Then why not create the WebAssembly logo in LEGO!