RMatrix

Rmatrix is similar to the cmatrix, but it wrote it in Rust. Get up to 75% performance improvement compared to cmatrix.

Build and Install

Minimum Rust requires 1.53.0

# build
cargo build --release

# install
cargo install --path .

Performance (2026-04-06)

This round focused on render-path and matrix-update hot loops:

• Switched from per-character print! to per-frame buffered output.
• Removed hot-path string clones.
• Replaced Stylize formatting in loops with ANSI color state switching.
• Added minimum poll delay to avoid busy-spin when speed is 0.
• Compacted Item storage (u8 + flags).
• Reduced index arithmetic in Matrix::next().
• Added RNG pooling/bit-pool usage in hot loops.

Benchmark summary (local machine)

Measured with a temporary perf_compare binary on the same workspace, 3 runs each.

1. Matrix::next() (10,000 frames, 220x70):
   • Before: 56.504 ms (median)
   • After: 48.624 ms (median)
   • Improvement: ~13.94%
2. Render string build (old/new logic simulation, rainbow on/off):
   • Before: 178.654 ms (median)
   • After: 56.810 ms (median)
   • Improvement: ~68.20%

Note: render benchmark isolates frame-string construction and does not include real terminal I/O latency.

Screencasts