Question

Has anyone tested this in release mode builds? Or are the implementations so similar there’s no significant difference?

I’m interested in the speed to:

1. Create a new shared_ptr

2. Create a copy of the shared_ptr

3. De-reference the pointer to access the pointee

This would be in a release build optimized for speed with new shared_ptrs being created with make_shared()

Answer 1

Ok, so it doesn’t look like anyone has done this. Here’s what I found using the standard VC 10 optimized settings for a WIN32 console app:

1. Visual C++ 2010 SP1 std::make_shared and std::shared_ptr were faster than the Boost 1.46.1 equivalents when populating a vector of 10 million pointer entries ( 1.96 secs versus 0.92 secs averaged across 20 runs)

2. Boost 1.46.1 was slightly faster than Visual C++ 2010 SP1 when copying an array of 10 million pointer entries ( 0.15 secs versus 0.17 secs averaged over 20 runs)

3. Visual C++ 2010 SP1 was slightly faster than the Boost 1.46.1 equivalents when dereferencing a vector of 10 million pointer entries 20 times ( 0.72 secs versus 0.811 secs averaged over 20 runs)

CONCLUSION: There was a significant difference when creating shared_ptrs to populate a vector. The Visual C++ 2010 shared_ptr was nearly twice as fast indicating a substantial difference in implementation compared to Boost 1.46.1.

The other tests didn’t show a significant difference.

Here’s the code I used:

#include "stdafx.h"

struct A
{
    A( const unsigned A) : m_value(A)
    {
    }

    const unsigned m_value;
};

typedef std::shared_ptr<A> APtr;
typedef boost::shared_ptr<A> ABoostPtr;


double TestSTLCreateSpeed()
{
    const unsigned NUM_ENTRIES = 10000000;
    std::vector<APtr> buffer;
    buffer.reserve(NUM_ENTRIES);

    boost::timer timer;

    for( unsigned nEntry = 0; nEntry < NUM_ENTRIES; ++nEntry)
    {
        buffer.emplace_back( std::make_shared<A>(nEntry) );
    }

    const double timeTaken = timer.elapsed();

    std::cout << "STL create test took " << timeTaken << " secs.\r\n";
    return timeTaken;
}

double BoostSTLCreateSpeed()
{
    const unsigned NUM_ENTRIES = 10000000;
    std::vector<ABoostPtr> buffer;
    buffer.reserve(NUM_ENTRIES);

    boost::timer timer;

    for( unsigned nEntry = 0; nEntry < NUM_ENTRIES; ++nEntry)
    {
        buffer.emplace_back( boost::make_shared<A>(nEntry) );
    }

    const double timeTaken = timer.elapsed();

    std::cout << "BOOST create test took " << timeTaken << " secs.\r\n";
    return timeTaken;
}

double TestSTLCopySpeed()
{
    const unsigned NUM_ENTRIES = 10000000;
    std::vector<APtr> buffer;
    buffer.reserve(NUM_ENTRIES);

    for( unsigned nEntry = 0; nEntry < NUM_ENTRIES; ++nEntry)
    {
        buffer.emplace_back( std::make_shared<A>(nEntry) );
    }

    boost::timer timer;
    std::vector<APtr> buffer2 = buffer;

    const double timeTaken = timer.elapsed();

    std::cout << "STL copy test took " << timeTaken << " secs.\r\n";
    return timeTaken;
}

double TestBoostCopySpeed()
{
    const unsigned NUM_ENTRIES = 10000000;
    std::vector<ABoostPtr> buffer;
    buffer.reserve(NUM_ENTRIES);

    for( unsigned nEntry = 0; nEntry < NUM_ENTRIES; ++nEntry)
    {
        buffer.emplace_back( boost::make_shared<A>(nEntry) );
    }

    boost::timer timer;
    std::vector<ABoostPtr> buffer2 = buffer;

    const double timeTaken = timer.elapsed();

    std::cout << "BOOST copy test took " << timeTaken << " secs.\r\n";
    return timeTaken;
}

double TestBoostDerefSpeed()
{
    const unsigned NUM_ENTRIES = 10000000;
    std::vector<ABoostPtr> buffer;
    buffer.reserve(NUM_ENTRIES);

    for( unsigned nEntry = 0; nEntry < NUM_ENTRIES; ++nEntry)
    {
        buffer.emplace_back( boost::make_shared<A>(nEntry) );
    }

    boost::timer timer;

    unsigned total = 0;

    for(unsigned nIter = 0; nIter < 20; ++nIter)
    {
        std::for_each( buffer.begin(), buffer.end(),
            [&](const ABoostPtr& pA){ 
                total += pA->m_value;
        });
    }

    const double timeTaken = timer.elapsed();

    std::cout << "BOOST deref total =  " << total << ".\r\n";

    std::cout << "BOOST deref test took " << timeTaken << " secs.\r\n";
    return timeTaken;
}

double TestSTLDerefSpeed()
{
    const unsigned NUM_ENTRIES = 10000000;
    std::vector<APtr> buffer;
    buffer.reserve(NUM_ENTRIES);

    for( unsigned nEntry = 0; nEntry < NUM_ENTRIES; ++nEntry)
    {
        buffer.emplace_back( std::make_shared<A>(nEntry) );
    }

    boost::timer timer;

    unsigned total = 0;
    for(unsigned nIter = 0; nIter < 20; ++nIter)
    {
        std::for_each( buffer.begin(), buffer.end(),
            [&](const APtr& pA){ 
                total += pA->m_value;
        });
    }

    const double timeTaken = timer.elapsed();

    std::cout << "STL deref total =  " << total << ".\r\n";

    std::cout << "STL deref test took " << timeTaken << " secs.\r\n";
    return timeTaken;
}

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    double totalTime = 0.0;
    const unsigned NUM_TESTS = 20;

    totalTime = 0.0;

    for ( unsigned nTest = 0; nTest < NUM_TESTS; ++nTest)
    {
        totalTime += BoostSTLCreateSpeed();
    }

    std::cout << "BOOST create test took " << totalTime / NUM_TESTS << " secs average.\r\n";

    totalTime = 0.0;
    for ( unsigned nTest = 0; nTest < NUM_TESTS; ++nTest)
    {
        totalTime += TestSTLCreateSpeed();
    }

    std::cout << "STL create test took " << totalTime / NUM_TESTS << " secs average.\r\n";


    totalTime = 0.0;
    for ( unsigned nTest = 0; nTest < NUM_TESTS; ++nTest)
    {
        totalTime += TestBoostCopySpeed();
    }

    std::cout << "BOOST copy test took " << totalTime / NUM_TESTS << " secs average.\r\n";

    totalTime = 0.0;
    for ( unsigned nTest = 0; nTest < NUM_TESTS; ++nTest)
    {
        totalTime += TestSTLCopySpeed();
    }

    std::cout << "STL copy test took " << totalTime / NUM_TESTS << " secs average.\r\n";

    totalTime = 0.0;
    for ( unsigned nTest = 0; nTest < NUM_TESTS; ++nTest)
    {
        totalTime += TestBoostDerefSpeed();
    }

    std::cout << "Boost deref test took " << totalTime / NUM_TESTS << " secs average.\r\n";

    totalTime = 0.0;
    for ( unsigned nTest = 0; nTest < NUM_TESTS; ++nTest)
    {
        totalTime += TestSTLDerefSpeed();
    }

    std::cout << "STL deref test took " << totalTime / NUM_TESTS << " secs average.\r\n";

    return 0;
}

I’ll wait a while and if no one has refuted my results or come up with some better conclusions I’ll accept my own answer.