A single moderately complex shader. Compiled to multiple targets by the harness (same source, varying -target) to isolate generateOutput cost. ``n`` scales the amount of straight-line math the backend must emit. Scaling null: n scales op count and the emitted output is O(n); ideal codegen cost is O(n).
bucket: codegen_source · mode: target · flags: -target metal
compileInner split into phase buckets (named leaves + (self) residuals) stacked across the sweep sizes — the top edge is compileInner, so you can see which phase drives the scaling.
floor-subtracted power-law fit (t − floor) = a·Nk; floor = the minimal workload (fixed per-compile cost), k the global exponent, top-2× the local high-end doubling ratio.
| N range | floor (ms) | k (work) | fit R² | t(Nmin) | t(Nmax) | top-2× |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100–800 | 10 | 1.93 | 0.998 | 89 | 4365 | 4.35× |
compileInner grows by 4276 ms across the sweep; the mutually-exclusive phase buckets below partition that growth exactly (no nested-timer double counting). × lin is the same metric as the top-level panels, per bucket: the end point vs a linear expectation anchored to the bucket's share of the minimal floor and fitted on the low-N half — 1.0 = grew exactly linearly, >1 bends up. The super-linearity lives where × lin (and k) are red.
| bucket | t@N=100 | t@N=800 | Δ ms | share | × lin | ∝Nk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| emitEntryPointsSourceFromIR | 35 | 2151 | +2116 | 50% | 4.88× | 1.99 |
| legalizeExistentialTypeLayout | 10 | 811 | +802 | 19% | 5.56× | 2.12 |
| legalizeResourceTypes | 10 | 799 | +789 | 18% | 5.65× | 2.12 |
| simplifyIR | 8 | 382 | +374 | 9% | 4.28× | 1.87 |
| specializeModule | 5 | 106 | +101 | 2% | 2.56× | 1.50 |
Near-constant (≤2% of growth each): SemanticChecking (15→62 ms), generateIR (5→47 ms), linkIR (1→2 ms), parseTranslationUnit (0→2 ms), performMandatoryEarlyInlining (0→1 ms), performForceInlining (0→1 ms), compileInner (self) (0→0 ms), unrollLoopsInModule (0→0 ms), frontEndExecute (self) (0→0 ms).
| N | compileInner | emitEntryPointsSourceFromIR | generateOutput |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 89 | 68 | 68 |
| 200 | 267 | 236 | 237 |
| 400 | 1004 | 952 | 953 |
| 800 | 4365 | 4253 | 4253 |