Is std::vector so much slower than plain arrays?

user_111021 0
Viewed 109504

I've always thought it's the general wisdom that std::vector is "implemented as an array," blah blah blah. Today I went down and tested it, and it seems to be not so:

Here's some test results:

UseArray completed in 2.619 seconds
UseVector completed in 9.284 seconds
UseVectorPushBack completed in 14.669 seconds
The whole thing completed in 26.591 seconds

That's about 3 - 4 times slower! Doesn't really justify for the "vector may be slower for a few nanosecs" comments.

And the code I used:

#include <cstdlib>
#include <vector>

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

#include <boost/date_time/posix_time/ptime.hpp>
#include <boost/date_time/microsec_time_clock.hpp>

class TestTimer
{
    public:
        TestTimer(const std::string & name) : name(name),
            start(boost::date_time::microsec_clock<boost::posix_time::ptime>::local_time())
        {
        }

        ~TestTimer()
        {
            using namespace std;
            using namespace boost;

            posix_time::ptime now(date_time::microsec_clock<posix_time::ptime>::local_time());
            posix_time::time_duration d = now - start;

            cout << name << " completed in " << d.total_milliseconds() / 1000.0 <<
                " seconds" << endl;
        }

    private:
        std::string name;
        boost::posix_time::ptime start;
};

struct Pixel
{
    Pixel()
    {
    }

    Pixel(unsigned char r, unsigned char g, unsigned char b) : r(r), g(g), b(b)
    {
    }

    unsigned char r, g, b;
};

void UseVector()
{
    TestTimer t("UseVector");

    for(int i = 0; i < 1000; ++i)
    {
        int dimension = 999;

        std::vector<Pixel> pixels;
        pixels.resize(dimension * dimension);

        for(int i = 0; i < dimension * dimension; ++i)
        {
            pixels[i].r = 255;
            pixels[i].g = 0;
            pixels[i].b = 0;
        }
    }
}

void UseVectorPushBack()
{
    TestTimer t("UseVectorPushBack");

    for(int i = 0; i < 1000; ++i)
    {
        int dimension = 999;

        std::vector<Pixel> pixels;
            pixels.reserve(dimension * dimension);

        for(int i = 0; i < dimension * dimension; ++i)
            pixels.push_back(Pixel(255, 0, 0));
    }
}

void UseArray()
{
    TestTimer t("UseArray");

    for(int i = 0; i < 1000; ++i)
    {
        int dimension = 999;

        Pixel * pixels = (Pixel *)malloc(sizeof(Pixel) * dimension * dimension);

        for(int i = 0 ; i < dimension * dimension; ++i)
        {
            pixels[i].r = 255;
            pixels[i].g = 0;
            pixels[i].b = 0;
        }

        free(pixels);
    }
}

int main()
{
    TestTimer t1("The whole thing");

    UseArray();
    UseVector();
    UseVectorPushBack();

    return 0;
}

Am I doing it wrong or something? Or have I just busted this performance myth?

I'm using Release mode in Visual Studio 2005.

In Visual C++, #define _SECURE_SCL 0 reduces UseVector by half (bringing it down to 4 seconds). This is really huge, IMO.

vector stl arrays c++ performance
22 Answers

My laptop is Lenova G770 (4 GB RAM).

The OS is Windows 7 64-bit (the one with laptop)

Compiler is MinGW 4.6.1.

The IDE is Code::Blocks.

I test the source codes of the first post.

The results

O2 optimization

UseArray completed in 2.841 seconds

UseVector completed in 2.548 seconds

UseVectorPushBack completed in 11.95 seconds

The whole thing completed in 17.342 seconds

system pause

O3 optimization

UseArray completed in 1.452 seconds

UseVector completed in 2.514 seconds

UseVectorPushBack completed in 12.967 seconds

The whole thing completed in 16.937 seconds

It looks like the performance of vector is worse under O3 optimization.

If you change the loop to

    pixels[i].r = i;
    pixels[i].g = i;
    pixels[i].b = i;

The speed of array and vector under O2 and O3 are almost the same.

user_12812640

I did some extensive tests that I wanted to for a while now. Might as well share this.

This is my dual boot machine i7-3770, 16GB Ram, x86_64, on Windows 8.1 and on Ubuntu 16.04. More information and conclusions, remarks below. Tested both MSVS 2017 and g++ (both on Windows and on Linux).

Test Program

#include <iostream>
#include <chrono>
//#include <algorithm>
#include <array>
#include <locale>
#include <vector>
#include <queue>
#include <deque>

// Note: total size of array must not exceed 0x7fffffff B = 2,147,483,647B
//  which means that largest int array size is 536,870,911
// Also image size cannot be larger than 80,000,000B
constexpr int long g_size = 100000;
int g_A[g_size];


int main()
{
    std::locale loc("");
    std::cout.imbue(loc);
    constexpr int long size = 100000;  // largest array stack size

    // stack allocated c array
    std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    int A[size];
    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        A[i] = i;

    auto duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start).count();
    std::cout << "c-style stack array duration=" << duration / 1000.0 << "ms\n";
    std::cout << "c-style stack array size=" << sizeof(A) << "B\n\n";

    // global stack c array
    start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    for (int i = 0; i < g_size; i++)
        g_A[i] = i;

    duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start).count();
    std::cout << "global c-style stack array duration=" << duration / 1000.0 << "ms\n";
    std::cout << "global c-style stack array size=" << sizeof(g_A) << "B\n\n";

    // raw c array heap array
    start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    int* AA = new int[size];    // bad_alloc() if it goes higher than 1,000,000,000
    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        AA[i] = i;

    duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start).count();
    std::cout << "c-style heap array duration=" << duration / 1000.0 << "ms\n";
    std::cout << "c-style heap array size=" << sizeof(AA) << "B\n\n";
    delete[] AA;

    // std::array<>
    start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    std::array<int, size> AAA;
    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        AAA[i] = i;
    //std::sort(AAA.begin(), AAA.end());

    duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start).count();
    std::cout << "std::array duration=" << duration / 1000.0 << "ms\n";
    std::cout << "std::array size=" << sizeof(AAA) << "B\n\n";

    // std::vector<>
    start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    std::vector<int> v;
    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        v.push_back(i);
    //std::sort(v.begin(), v.end());

    duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start).count();
    std::cout << "std::vector duration=" << duration / 1000.0 << "ms\n";
    std::cout << "std::vector size=" << v.size() * sizeof(v.back()) << "B\n\n";

    // std::deque<>
    start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    std::deque<int> dq;
    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        dq.push_back(i);
    //std::sort(dq.begin(), dq.end());

    duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start).count();
    std::cout << "std::deque duration=" << duration / 1000.0 << "ms\n";
    std::cout << "std::deque size=" << dq.size() * sizeof(dq.back()) << "B\n\n";

    // std::queue<>
    start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    std::queue<int> q;
    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        q.push(i);

    duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start).count();
    std::cout << "std::queue duration=" << duration / 1000.0 << "ms\n";
    std::cout << "std::queue size=" << q.size() * sizeof(q.front()) << "B\n\n";
}

Results

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// with MSVS 2017:
// >> cl /std:c++14 /Wall -O2 array_bench.cpp
//
// c-style stack array duration=0.15ms
// c-style stack array size=400,000B
//
// global c-style stack array duration=0.130ms
// global c-style stack array size=400,000B
//
// c-style heap array duration=0.90ms
// c-style heap array size=4B
//
// std::array duration=0.20ms
// std::array size=400,000B
//
// std::vector duration=0.544ms
// std::vector size=400,000B
//
// std::deque duration=1.375ms
// std::deque size=400,000B
//
// std::queue duration=1.491ms
// std::queue size=400,000B
//
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
// with g++ version:
//      - (tdm64-1) 5.1.0 on Windows
//      - (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.10) 5.4.0 20160609 on Ubuntu 16.04
// >> g++ -std=c++14 -Wall -march=native -O2 array_bench.cpp -o array_bench
//
// c-style stack array duration=0ms
// c-style stack array size=400,000B
//
// global c-style stack array duration=0.124ms
// global c-style stack array size=400,000B
//
// c-style heap array duration=0.648ms
// c-style heap array size=8B
//
// std::array duration=1ms
// std::array size=400,000B
//
// std::vector duration=0.402ms
// std::vector size=400,000B
//
// std::deque duration=0.234ms
// std::deque size=400,000B
//
// std::queue duration=0.304ms
// std::queue size=400,000
//
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Notes

  • Assembled by an average of 10 runs.
  • I initially performed tests with std::sort() too (you can see it commented out) but removed them later because there were no significant relative differences.

My Conclusions and Remarks

  • notice how global c-style array takes almost as much time as the heap c-style array
  • Out of all tests I noticed a remarkable stability in std::array's time variations between consecutive runs, while others especially std:: data structs varied wildly in comparison
  • O3 optimization didn't show any noteworthy time differences
  • Removing optimization on Windows cl (no -O2) and on g++ (Win/Linux no -O2, no -march=native) increases times SIGNIFICANTLY. Particularly for std::data structs. Overall higher times on MSVS than g++, but std::array and c-style arrays faster on Windows without optimization
  • g++ produces faster code than microsoft's compiler (apparently it runs faster even on Windows).

Verdict

Of course this is code for an optimized build. And since the question was about std::vector then yes it is !much! slower than plain arrays (optimized/unoptimized). But when you're doing a benchmark, you naturally want to produce optimized code.

The star of the show for me though has been std::array.

user_47432750

It seems to depend on the compiler flags. Here is a benchmark code:

#include <chrono>
#include <cmath>
#include <ctime>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>


int main(){

    int size = 1000000; // reduce this number in case your program crashes
    int L = 10;

    std::cout << "size=" << size << " L=" << L << std::endl;
    {
        srand( time(0) );
        double * data = new double[size];
        double result = 0.;
        std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
        for( int l = 0; l < L; l++ ) {
            for( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) data[i] = rand() % 100;
            for( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) result += data[i] * data[i];
        }
        std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point end   = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
        auto duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(end - start).count();
        std::cout << "Calculation result is " << sqrt(result) << "\n";
        std::cout << "Duration of C style heap array:    " << duration << "ms\n";
        delete data;
    }

    {
        srand( 1 + time(0) );
        double data[size]; // technically, non-compliant with C++ standard.
        double result = 0.;
        std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
        for( int l = 0; l < L; l++ ) {
            for( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) data[i] = rand() % 100;
            for( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) result += data[i] * data[i];
        }
        std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point end   = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
        auto duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(end - start).count();
        std::cout << "Calculation result is " << sqrt(result) << "\n";
        std::cout << "Duration of C99 style stack array: " << duration << "ms\n";
    }

    {
        srand( 2 + time(0) );
        std::vector<double> data( size );
        double result = 0.;
        std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
        for( int l = 0; l < L; l++ ) {
            for( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) data[i] = rand() % 100;
            for( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) result += data[i] * data[i];
        }
        std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point end   = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
        auto duration = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(end - start).count();
        std::cout << "Calculation result is " << sqrt(result) << "\n";
        std::cout << "Duration of std::vector array:     " << duration << "ms\n";
    }

    return 0;
}

Different optimization flags give different answers:

$ g++ -O0 benchmark.cpp 
$ ./a.out 
size=1000000 L=10
Calculation result is 181182
Duration of C style heap array:    118441ms
Calculation result is 181240
Duration of C99 style stack array: 104920ms
Calculation result is 181210
Duration of std::vector array:     124477ms
$g++ -O3 benchmark.cpp
$ ./a.out 
size=1000000 L=10
Calculation result is 181213
Duration of C style heap array:    107803ms
Calculation result is 181198
Duration of C99 style stack array: 87247ms
Calculation result is 181204
Duration of std::vector array:     89083ms
$ g++ -Ofast benchmark.cpp 
$ ./a.out 
size=1000000 L=10
Calculation result is 181164
Duration of C style heap array:    93530ms
Calculation result is 181179
Duration of C99 style stack array: 80620ms
Calculation result is 181191
Duration of std::vector array:     78830ms

Your exact results will vary but this is quite typical on my machine.

user_4117680

In my experience, sometimes, just sometimes, vector<int> can be many times slower than int[]. One thing to keep mind is that vectors of vectors are very unlike int[][]. As the elements are probably not contiguous in memory. This means you can resize different vectors inside of the main one, but CPU might not be able to cache elements as well as in the case of int[][].

user_26173510
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