Optimised, high-performance, multi-threaded rendering pipeline

Mon Nov 28 05:54:47 UTC 2016

Sorry Gerrit - you did indeed.

Maybe you'd also like to participate in the offline discussion (especially now that you don't work for Oracle)?

> On 28 Nov. 2016, at 16:07, han.solo at icloud.com wrote:
> 
> Well I mentioned before that I'm interested too :)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Gerrit
> 
> 
> Am 27. Nov. 2016, 22:58 +0100 schrieb Felix Bembrick <felix.bembrick at gmail.com>:
>> Well, given that you and Benjamin seem to be the only people interested in it, perhaps we should discuss it offline (so as not to bother Oracle or spam list this)...
>> 
>>> On 28 Nov. 2016, at 06:57, Tobias Bley <bley at jpro.io> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Where can we read more about your HPR renderer?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Am 25.11.2016 um 16:45 schrieb Felix Bembrick <felix.bembrick at gmail.com>:
>>>> 
>>>> Short answer? Maybe.
>>>> 
>>>> But exactly one more word than any from Oracle ;-)
>>>> 
>>>>> On 26 Nov. 2016, at 00:07, Tobias Bley <bley at jpro.io> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> A very short answer ;) ….
>>>>> 
>>>>> Do you have any URL?
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Am 25.11.2016 um 12:19 schrieb Felix Bembrick <felix.bembrick at gmail.com>:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yes.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 25 Nov. 2016, at 21:45, Tobias Bley <bley at jpro.io> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> @Felix: Is there any Github project, demo video or trial to test HPR with JavaFX?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>>> Tobi
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Am 11.11.2016 um 12:08 schrieb Felix Bembrick <felix.bembrick at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Thanks Laurent,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> That's another thing we discovered: using Java itself in the most performant way can help a lot.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> It can be tricky, but profiling can often highlight various patterns of object instantiation that show-up red flags and can lead you directly to regions of the code that can be refactored to be significantly more efficient.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Also, the often overlooked GC log analysis can lead to similar discoveries and remedies.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Blessings,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Felix
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On 11 Nov. 2016, at 21:55, Laurent Bourgès <bourges.laurent at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> To optimize Pisces that became the Marlin rasterizer, I carefully avoided any both array allocation (byte/int/float pools) and also reduced array copies or clean up ie only clear dirty parts.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> This approach is generic and could be applied in other critical places of the rendering pipelines.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> FYI here are my fosdem 2016 slides on the Marlin renderer:
>>>>>>>>> https://bourgesl.github.io/fosdem-2016/slides/fosdem-2016-Marlin.pdf
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Of course I would be happy to share my experience and work with a tiger team on optimizing JavaFX graphics.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> However I would like getting sort of sponsoring for my potential contributions...
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>>>> Laurent
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Le 11 nov. 2016 11:29, "Tobi" <tobi at ultramixer.com> a écrit :
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> thanks Felix, Laurent and Chris for sharing your stuff with the community!
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> I am happy to see starting a discussion about boosting up the JavaFX rendering performance. I can confirm that the performance of JavaFX scene graph is not there where it should be. So multithreading would be an excellent, but difficult approach.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Felix, concerning your research of other toolkits: Do they all use multithreading or are there any toolkits which use single threading but are faster than JavaFX?
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> So maybe there are other points than multithreading where we can boost the performance?
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 2) your HPR sounds great. Did you already try DemoFX (part 3) benchmark with your HPR?
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>>>>>> Tobi
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Am 10.11.2016 um 19:11 schrieb Felix Bembrick <felix.bembrick at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> (Thanks to Kevin for lifting my "awaiting moderation" impasse).
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> So, with all the recent discussions regarding the great contribution by
>>>>>>>>>>> Laurent Bourgès of MarlinFX, it was suggested that a separate thread be
>>>>>>>>>>> started to discuss parallelisation of the JavaFX rendering pipeline in
>>>>>>>>>>> general.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> As has been correctly pointed-out, converting or modifying the existing
>>>>>>>>>>> rendering pipeline into a fully multi-threaded and performant beast is
>>>>>>>>>>> indeed quite a complex task.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> But, that's exactly what myself and my colleagues have been working on for
>>>>>>>>>>> about 2 years.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> The result is what we call the Hyper Rendering Pipeline (HPR).
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Work on HPR started when we developed FXMark and were (bitterly)
>>>>>>>>>>> disappointed with the performance of the JavaFX scene graph. Many JavaFX
>>>>>>>>>>> developers have blogged about the need to dramatically minimise the number
>>>>>>>>>>> of nodes (especially on embedded devices) in order to achieve even
>>>>>>>>>>> "acceptable" performance. Often it is the case that most (if not all
>>>>>>>>>>> rendering) is eventually done in a single Canvas node.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Now, as well already know, the JavaFX Canvas does perform very well and the
>>>>>>>>>>> recent awesome work (DemoFX) by Chris Newland, just for example, shows what
>>>>>>>>>>> can be done with this one node.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> But, the majority of the animation plumbing in JavaFX is related to the
>>>>>>>>>>> scene graph itself and is designed to make use of multiple nodes and node
>>>>>>>>>>> types. At the moment, the performance of this scene graph is the Achilles
>>>>>>>>>>> Heel of JavaFX (or at least one of them).
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Enter HPR.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> I personally have worked with a number of hardware-accelerated toolkits
>>>>>>>>>>> over the years and am astounded by just how sluggish the rendering pipeline
>>>>>>>>>>> for JavaFX is. When I am animating just a couple of hundred nodes using
>>>>>>>>>>> JavaFX and transitions, I am lucky to get more than about 30 FPS, but on
>>>>>>>>>>> the same (very powerful) machine, I can use other toolkits to render
>>>>>>>>>>> thousands of "objects" and achieve frame rates well over 1000 FPS.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> So, we refactored the entire scene graph rendering pipeline with the
>>>>>>>>>>> following goals and principles:
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 1. It is written using JavaFX 9 and Java 9 (but could theoretically be
>>>>>>>>>>> back-ported to JavaFX 8 though I see no reason to).
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 2. We analysed how other toolkits had optimised their own rendering
>>>>>>>>>>> pipelines (especially Qt which has made some significant advances in this
>>>>>>>>>>> area in recent years). We also analysed recent examples of multi-threaded
>>>>>>>>>>> rendering using the new Vulkan API.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 3. We carefully analysed and determined which parts of the pipeline should
>>>>>>>>>>> best utilise the CPU and which parts should best utilise the GPU.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 4. For those parts most suited to the CPU, we use the advanced concurrency
>>>>>>>>>>> features of Java 8/9 to maximise parallelisation and throughput by
>>>>>>>>>>> utilising multiple cores & threads in as an efficient manner as possible.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 5. We devoted a large amount of time to optimising the "communication"
>>>>>>>>>>> between the CPU and GPU to be far less "chatty" and this alone led to some
>>>>>>>>>>> huge performance gains.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 6. We also looked at the structure of the scene graph itself and after
>>>>>>>>>>> studying products such as OpenSceneGraph, we refactored the JavaFX scene
>>>>>>>>>>> graph in such a way that it lends itself to optimised rendering much more
>>>>>>>>>>> easily.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> 7. This is clearly not a "small" patch. In fact to refer to it as a
>>>>>>>>>>> "patch" is probably rather inappropriate.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> The end result is that we now have a fully-functional prototype of HPR and,
>>>>>>>>>>> already, we are seeing very significant performance improvements.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> At the minimum, scene graph rendering performance has improved by 500% and,
>>>>>>>>>>> with judicious and sometimes "tricky" use of caching, we have seen
>>>>>>>>>>> improvements in performance of 10x or more.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> And... we are only just *starting* with the performance optimisation phase.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> The potential for HPR is massive as it opens-up the possibility for the
>>>>>>>>>>> JavaFX scene graph and the animation/transition infrastructure to be used
>>>>>>>>>>> for a whole new class of applications including games, advanced
>>>>>>>>>>> visualisations etc., without having to rely on imperative programming of a
>>>>>>>>>>> single Canvas node.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> I believe that HPR, along with tremendous recent developments like JPro and
>>>>>>>>>>> the outstanding work by Gluon on mobiles and embedded devices, could
>>>>>>>>>>> position JavaFX to be the best graphics toolkit of any kind in any language
>>>>>>>>>>> and, be the ONLY *truly* cross-platform graphics technology available.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> WORA for graphics and UIs is finally within reach!
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Blessings,
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Felix
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>> 