Open vs Packaged Images

[cwolcott]

Should a packaged image run atleast as fast, if not faster, than an open image?

My assumption was 'YES' because the symbol table in the packaged image is so much smaller. I would expect to see an improvement in runtime for a packaged image over an open image. Of course I am talking about a background process instead of a GUI front end. I can't find any old test that I performed, but I thouhgt that I use to see a 5-10% improvement in our simulation when it ran in a packaged image. The reason that I ask is we just noticed that the opposite has become true.

Any thoughts or statistics?

[nmongeau]

I believe they both run at the same speed. But something that can change the speed notably is the absence of the esdec40.dll. That dll contains primitives to run some math code, ScaledDecimal for instances uses it. But if the dll is not present, it is standard Smalltalk code that gets executed, albeit slower.

Normand

[daswartz]

Should a packaged image run atleast as fast, if not faster, than an open image?

Memory settings can have a significant effect on run speed. A too small newSpace for your packaged image run, especially if you are creating large collections of objects or large objects which could be scavenged with a larger new space, rather than moved to old space and later garbage collected, could slow it down a lot.

Doug Swartz