Re: [Choco-users] Choco Speed

[Mark U. <ma...@cs...>]

Guillaume Rochart wrote:

>Your mail is very interesting. We have just started to test Choco performance, 
>since this was not our first requirement. But Sure, it is obviously a 
>critical aspect of the solver.
>
>We made some improvement since the last release on the web site. This in on 
>the CVS, but we will send you a jar directly (and publish it as soon as 
>possible, next week we think) compared to the claire version of choco. 
>
>If we try the NQueens problem on a 3 GHz machine (JDK 1.4.2_03), with the 
>server mode and 13 queens, we find all solutions in 60 seconds 
>approximatively, which is much more acceptable.
>  
>
Excellent!

When I try this new version with my benchmarks, it now shows that 
Choco/Java
(with JDK1.4.2 -server mode) is only 1.4 times slower than the old C++ 
version of
Choco.  (The results with JDK 1.5 server mode were roughly the same).

This is an excellent result.

>
>Moreover we plan some improvements like observer lists for each variables, 
>lazy iterator building, simplified propagation queue... but we still need to 
>test these improvements to check their correctness.
>
>Another point is that the JDK 1.5 is quite more efficient with Choco (at least 
>in client mode). So it may be a good idea to use this new version.
>
>Could just try again your benchmark with the new build we will send you 
>separately ?
>
Here it is again, with two extra lines added for Choco1.0.

RESULTS                N = 4   5   6   7   8   9   10    11    12    
13    14
=======
SICStus Prolog clpfd:      0   0   0   0   0   0   .1    .5   1.8   
8.7    47
(compiled with 3.11.2)
Choco/C++ (Claire)         0   0   0   0   0  .1   .3   1.5   7.6  
42.8   248
(Choco1.326, Claire3.3.40)
Choco.sf.net/Java client  .3  .3  .4  .5  .6 1.1  3.1  12.2  64.0 396.0  
2002
(choco-0.9, JDK 1.4.2_03)
Choco.sf.net/Java server  .4  .4  .4  .8 1.2 2.1  3.8  10.3  44.2 226.2  
1323
(choco-0.9, JDK 1.4.2_03 -server)
CHR with domain.pl        .5 5.0 265 --- --- ---  ---   ---   ---   
---   ---
(SICstus chr/examples/domain.pl)
Choco.sf.net/Java server   -   -   -   -  .8 1.1  1.9   3.8  11.8  
50.9   339   NEW
(choco-1.0b001, JDK 1.4.2_03 -server)
Choco.sf.net/Java server   -   -   -   -  .8 1.3  1.8   3.8  13.0  
60.2   352   NEW
(choco-1.0b001, JDK 1.5.0 -server)

And the old and new ratios versus Choco in C++.
Ratio of ChocoJava0.9(server) / ChocoC++ :    26   12   6.9   5.8   
5.3   5.3
Ratio of ChocoJava1.0(server) / ChocoC++ :    14    6   2.6   1.6   1.4 
  1.4   NEW :-)
  (Both these use JDK1.4.2)

>
> * Moreover, we chose BSD license to allow everybody to use the project even 
>in a commercial context.
>  
>
Yes, this makes it useful for commercial companies like us.

Thanks for your prompt and helpful responses.
Mark.