HLSL · Performance · Building an internal platform with hlsl-perf from scratch: architecture and decision log

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

I just read the hlsl-perf source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

This is not a hlsl-perf problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

One counter-example: below hlsl-perf 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

I just read the hlsl-perf source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

One counter-example: below hlsl-perf 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

This is not a hlsl-perf problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

I just read the hlsl-perf source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

I just read the hlsl-perf source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

I just read the hlsl-perf source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.