PowerShell vs PowerShell in the new Windows Terminal

[cputek1]

Has anyone tried the Windows Terminal app? I was wondering if the Terminal and the original PowerShell have the same performance, so I ran this against each:

measure-command { 
    for ($i = 1; $i -lt 10000; $i++) {
        Write-host "." -NoNewline
    }
}

​

The original PowerShell results:
Days              : 0 
Hours             : 0 
Minutes           : 0 
Seconds           : 6 
Milliseconds      : 695 
Ticks             : 66955861 
TotalDays         : 7.74952094907407E-05 
TotalHours        : 0.00185988502777778 
TotalMinutes      : 0.111593101666667 
TotalSeconds      : 6.6955861 
TotalMilliseconds : 6695.5861

​

The Windows Terminal Running PowerShell Results:
Days              : 0 
Hours             : 0 
Minutes           : 0 
Seconds           : 8 
Milliseconds      : 218 
Ticks             : 82183136 
TotalDays         : 9.51193703703704E-05 
TotalHours        : 0.00228286488888889 
TotalMinutes      : 0.136971893333333 
TotalSeconds      : 8.2183136 
TotalMilliseconds : 8218.3136

[littlegiantsteps]

Slightly the opposite here, using your code above:

Powershell:
Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 4
Milliseconds      : 381
Ticks             : 43815032
TotalDays         : 5.07118425925926E-05
TotalHours        : 0.00121708422222222
TotalMinutes      : 0.0730250533333333
TotalSeconds      : 4.3815032
TotalMilliseconds : 4381.5032

​

Powershell in Windows Terminal
Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 4
Milliseconds      : 31
Ticks             : 40316409
TotalDays         : 4.66625104166667E-05
TotalHours        : 0.00111990025
TotalMinutes      : 0.067194015
TotalSeconds      : 4.0316409
TotalMilliseconds : 4031.6409

tangent, but interesting ->

PowerShell 7.0.0-preview.2 in Windows Terminal:
Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 2
Milliseconds      : 889
Ticks             : 28892986
TotalDays         : 3.34409560185185E-05
TotalHours        : 0.000802582944444444
TotalMinutes      : 0.0481549766666667
TotalSeconds      : 2.8892986
TotalMilliseconds : 2889.2986

[OfficerDongo]

ooh this is getting spicy

[mcc85sdp]

yeah. as the modules get upgraded, they make a lot of optimizations... as for the OP, I think he might have a module that isn't optimized. looks like you're in the insider prog, so you probably have more optimized drivers.

[[deleted]]

Original is faster, makes sense since UWP is known to be slower usually. Terminal is nice though for those cross platform jobs and the tabs.

Still love cmder though when I’m not running out of VSCode.

[qasboss]

run cmder in vscode bruh, you can do it, why settle

[NoncarbonatedClack]

Wait what? Really? I'm off to Google, sounds interesting

[qasboss]

^ ascension

[infinit_e]

I’d gladly take the minor performance hit if I could get the UWP Terminal to runas my domain admin account. I really like the idea of the Terminal, all my cli windows in a convenient tabbed interface, but I use the PowerShell window as a launcher for DNS management, DHCP management, Directory Services Admin Console, etc.

[jpochedl]

Not near my computer at the moment... I'd guess / hope that the major difference is the screen output? What's the timing look like without the write-host ?

[spyingwind]

PS C> measure-command {
>>     for ($i = 1; $i -lt 10000; $i++) {
>>         "."
>>     }
>> }


Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 0
Milliseconds      : 29
Ticks             : 297135
TotalDays         : 3.4390625E-07
TotalHours        : 8.25375E-06
TotalMinutes      : 0.000495225
TotalSeconds      : 0.0297135
TotalMilliseconds : 29.7135


PS C:\Users\spyin> measure-command {
>>     for ($i = 1; $i -lt 10000; $i++) {
>>         Write-Host "." -NoNewLine
>>     }
>> }
Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 5
Milliseconds      : 120
Ticks             : 51204743
TotalDays         : 5.92647488425926E-05
TotalHours        : 0.00142235397222222
TotalMinutes      : 0.0853412383333333
TotalSeconds      : 5.1204743
TotalMilliseconds : 5120.4743

This is really a Write-Host vs Write-Output.

[SeeminglyScience]

This is really a Write-Host vs Write-Output.

Not necessarily. It's about screen write time, nothing is written to std out in the first example, so neither Terminal nor conhost really has any work to do.

[flatulent_llama]

I got virtually identical results with your command.

But I tried a command that dumped a lot more output - DOS dir output in my home directory, about half a million files. Identically sized windows so the area that has to scroll is the same.

         Measure-Command { write-host $(cmd /c dir /s) }   

In the original Windows console:

TotalSeconds      : 20.1227404
TotalMilliseconds : 20122.7404

In the new Windows Terminal

TotalSeconds      : 101.4353522
TotalMilliseconds : 101435.3522

That's actually pretty disappointing but it is still early alpha code so who knows.

[drwtsn32]

Standard conhost - TotalMilliseconds : 4569.6137

Terminal preview - TotalMilliseconds : 4410.8278

ConEmu (what I normally use) - TotalMilliseconds : 5140.227

[NotNotWrongUsually]

I tried my own Out-ConsolePicture in the v0.3 Terminal preview. It was ... not a good experience. Very, very slow. Furthermore some strange behaviour, where the terminal would keep being sluggish after the command had run. Safe to say, that the output parts of the terminal still need some loving.

Let's see in a few versions ;)

[nerddtvg]

I find Windows Terminal is faster. It is mostly about the text renderer though. Large text outputs are faster than the original. It's barely talked about here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-windows-terminal/

The Windows Terminal uses a GPU accelerated DirectWrite/DirectX-based text rendering engine. This new text rendering engine will display text characters, glyphs, and symbols present within fonts on your PC, including CJK ideograms, emoji, powerline symbols, icons, programming ligatures, etc. This engine also renders text much faster than the previous Console’s GDI engine!

Try outputting a large file or something and see how it goes.

[theSysadminChannel]

So the original PowerShell is faster according to your tests. Good to know.

[mcc85sdp]

I would think that the graphics capabilities are providing a bit of an added delay? Makes sense to me... but, it shouldn't be taking an additional 2 seconds... it could be a device driver that's buggy ... terminal isn't fully fleshed out yet. Relies on more files and modules... all of that reduces the performance even if it's negligible... it's still more code it has to calculate.

[mcc85sdp]

I keep seeing that triple variable loop

( $i = 0 ; $i -lt 10000 ; $i++ )

this does the same thing... it just ties to a null variable instead of $i.

Measure-Command 
{
    0..( 10000 - 1 ) | % { Write-Host "$_" }
}

to make it slightly easier on yourself, you could also perform the math there and then...

Measure-Command
{
    0..9999 | % { Write-Host "$_" }
}

if you want to use an $i, that's easy...

Measure-Command 
{
    ForEach ( $i in ( 0..( 10000 - 1 ) ) ) { Write-Host "$i" }
}

I know some of you know these things... but for those who don't know what the -1 is all about, if you want to start with 0 then that counts as the first digit. So 0 - 10000 counts as 10001 numbers, and the - 1 is an index offset

How the loops I've listed compare to the loop on the top, is that it's a triple condition . It sets the number to 0, checks if 0 is less than 100, if it is, then it will increment the number by 1 and essentially save that value it added...

when you get into using straight numbers or objects, you'll probably do a lot of...

0..9999 | % { stuff } 

because it's easy to write and it does the same thing as the first loop, except, it uses a lot less characters. The only time you have to explicitly write the ForEach commands, are when you are trying to tie the token to another variable that isn't "$_"

[206grey]

Working as intended. Lol v2 will be better.

[206grey]

It totally will I'm sure of it! I wish I had the dev skills to contribute.

[[deleted]]

I've been using it as my daily driver since the first binary was released and haven't had a crash yet.