[copx]

Great news, up until now there was no good Lua profiler.

You can thank GIANTS Software for this one: http://luajit.org/sponsors.html

GIANTS Software GmbH is sponsoring the development of a low-overhead profiling functionality for LuaJIT 2.1, starting in June 2013. GIANTS Software develops a variety of simulation games for desktop, mobile and consoles. These games make extensive use of Lua for scripting and modding. Switching to LuaJIT was instrumental in reducing the CPU load and sustaining the required frame rates on all platforms.

Existing profilers for Lua and LuaJIT are based on Lua hooks and debug queries. The use of these generic mechanisms incurs a high overhead. Execution of a program under control of such a profiler causes substantial slow-downs. Actual use of the program (gameplay) may be impossible in some cases.

The goal is to design and implement a new profiling functionality that has a much lower overhead, better control of detail and high flexibility.

[denzquix]

It kind of astounds me how many previous sponsors are anonymous. (Well, sponsored features, I should say. I guess it could be the same one anonymous sponsor.) I'd be interested to know, just in general terms, what kind of real-world situation(s) there are where the downside to being public about this is greater than the goodwill/respect they would get for doing it. Maybe they do not want to be known as a company willing to sponsor development that they don't "own"? Could there be legal ramifications?

[mikemike]

Most of the sponsors who wished to remain anonymous didn't want their competition to know they use LuaJIT. :-)

[denzquix]

Aha, that makes sense. Well, good luck to them on keeping their "secret" weapon under wraps :-)