Question

I am trying to execute a simple calculation (it calls Math.random() 10000000 times). Surprisingly running it in simple method performs much faster than using ExecutorService.

I have read another thread at ExecutorService's surprising performance break-even point — rules of thumb? and tried to follow the answer by executing the Callable using batches, but the performance is still bad

How do I improve the performance based on my current code?

import java.util.*;
import java.util.concurrent.*;

public class MainTest {
    public static void main(String[]args) throws Exception {
        new MainTest().start();;
    }

    final List<Worker> workermulti = new ArrayList<Worker>();
    final List<Worker> workersingle = new ArrayList<Worker>();
    final int count=10000000;

    public void start() throws Exception {
        int n=2;

        workersingle.add(new Worker(1));
        for (int i=0;i<n;i++) {
            // worker will only do count/n job
            workermulti.add(new Worker(n));
        }

        ExecutorService serviceSingle = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
        ExecutorService serviceMulti = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(n);
        long s,e;
        int tests=10;
        List<Long> simple = new ArrayList<Long>();
        List<Long> single = new ArrayList<Long>();
        List<Long> multi = new ArrayList<Long>();

        for (int i=0;i<tests;i++) {
            // simple
            s = System.currentTimeMillis();
            simple();
            e = System.currentTimeMillis();
            simple.add(e-s);

            // single thread
            s = System.currentTimeMillis();
               serviceSingle.invokeAll(workersingle); // single thread
            e = System.currentTimeMillis();
            single.add(e-s);

            // multi thread
            s = System.currentTimeMillis();
               serviceMulti.invokeAll(workermulti);
            e = System.currentTimeMillis();
            multi.add(e-s);
        }
        long avgSimple=sum(simple)/tests;
        long avgSingle=sum(single)/tests;
        long avgMulti=sum(multi)/tests;
        System.out.println("Average simple: "+avgSimple+" ms");
        System.out.println("Average single thread: "+avgSingle+" ms");
        System.out.println("Average multi thread: "+avgMulti+" ms");

        serviceSingle.shutdown();
        serviceMulti.shutdown();
    }

    long sum(List<Long> list) {
        long sum=0;
        for (long l : list) {
            sum+=l;
        }
        return sum;
    }

    private void simple() {
        for (int i=0;i<count;i++){
            Math.random();
        }
    }

    class Worker implements Callable<Void> {
        int n;

        public Worker(int n) {
            this.n=n;
        }

        @Override
        public Void call() throws Exception {
            // divide count with n to perform batch execution
            for (int i=0;i<(count/n);i++) {
                Math.random();
            }
            return null;
        }
    }
}

The output for this code

Average simple: 920 ms
Average single thread: 1034 ms
Average multi thread: 1393 ms

EDIT: performance suffer due to Math.random() being a synchronised method.. after changing Math.random() with new Random object for each thread, the performance improved

The output for the new code (after replacing Math.random() with Random for each thread)

Average simple: 928 ms
Average single thread: 1046 ms
Average multi thread: 642 ms

Answer 1

Math.random() is synchronized. Kind of the whole point of synchronized is to slow things down so they don’t collide. Use something that isn’t synchronized and/or give each thread its own object to work with, like a new Random.