Top 9 Performance Improvements in .NET 8

Quick Overview:
The components of dotnet 8 are highly optimized to build a high-performing business application using the framework and associated libraries. In this blog, you will avail of a brief about the top 9 performance improvements in .NET 8. The list includes JIT, AOT, networking, garage collection mechanism, VM, vectorization and more. As a result, you’ll understand how .NET 8 is a clear winner in terms of performance.

Introduction

Almost every year, Microsoft releases a new version of .NET development technology, and recently, .NET 8 is the latest one. Whenever a newer version is introduced, the company confirms a higher performance, security, scalability, and stability as compared to previous versions. The same is the case with dot net version 8.

There are multiple performance improvements in .NET 8 that every developer and organization working with this technology should know. Here, we have highlighted the top 9 of them to provide a brief idea about how components of dotnet 8 support reduced loading time and high performance.

The Reasons Why .NET 8 Performance is Exceptionally High

The following are the top 9 performance improvements in .NET 8, which support making applications faster, scalable, secure, and reliable in every potential use case.

Improved JIT Compiler

JIT is the primary compiler of .NET technology and one of the main components in making the applications faster in every use case. In .NET 8, Microsoft has optimized the JIT compiler to access and compile source code at request at a much faster rate. To make this possible, tiering and dynamic PGO is implemented in the dot net version 8.

Due to this, the following mechanisms come into effect, making apps work faster:

• The long running modules and methods avail of the On Stack Replacement, leading the software to swap code while it’s in execution.
• Because of tiering, the JIT creates tier 0 and tier 1 versions of the application when the code is first executed. Following it, whenever the user sends a request, the app directly accesses the value and provides output within minimal time.
• In .NET, dynamic profile-guided optimization is enabled by default. It helps compiler to effectively communicate with the processor and optimize branch predictions, cache memory and instruction paging.

Branching

Branching refers to the use of ternaries, loops, and if-else statements in the code and it’s a crucial part of the .NET source code. Whether it was .NET 6, 7, or 8, developers utilize branching for every version. However, due to extensive branching, the cost of executing a user request is increased as more processing, storage, and other resources are utilized.

However, in .NET 8, Microsoft has optimized the compiler to utilize fewer CPU resources to execute branching source code. In the newest version, the functioning of branch predictors is improved. Now, they can determine all paths leading to a single output. Due to this, only the code of relevant paths is executed, and a branchless output is provided to the user.

In addition, the new path predictor helps organizations reduce processing costs and also retain them for every probability. For instance, the cost of 0.5 and 1 will be the same throughout the software lifecycle.

Optimized AOT

The NativeAOT concept was introduced in the .NET 7 version, but it was improved in the Microsoft dot net 8 version. With this improvement, it’s capable of reducing the application size, leading to minimizing its loading and user request processing speed. It’s so effective in the eighth .NET version that a 13MB app can be reduced to only 1.5MB in total.

Further, the components and mechanisms supporting this size-reducing capability are as follows:

• The .NET 8 has provided support for the data structures used by Native AOT at runtime. It uses the pointers for them, making them rehydrated during execution and shaving down the thousands of kilobytes from the application.
• The types tracking is removed to improve .NET performance and save storage required to retain reflection information.
• Generating generic dictionaries is eliminated, helping reduce software size by an additional 1.5%.

Furthermore, the reduced app size uses less computing power, saving deployment and maintenance costs.

Improvement in VM

VM is responsible for managing type loading and assembly in the .NET applications. For performance improvements in .NET 8, three VM components are optimized by Microsoft, which are as follows:

1. Instruction mapping of a pointer associated with “MethodDesc.”
2. Optimization of “ExecutableAllocator” used by JIT during the runtime.
3. Reduction in validation and startup time, along with creating lookups for nested R2R image types.

With all these three improvements, .NET 8 is able to run faster than .NET 7 and other previous versions. In addition, it also helps in efficiently maintaining the cache memory used by the JIT compiler. Moreover, cache misses are also incurred, leading to eliminating additional cost, time, and effort.

To take advantage of all such improvements, you should avail of professional .NET application development services from a recognized firm. They can provide you with every required resource and experienced .NET developers to build high-performing .NET applications.

Better Garbage Collection

One of the main disadvantages of .NET was memory leaks and inefficient garbage collection. But with .NET 8, both these issues have been resolved to some extent. Now, the new garbage collection mechanism works dynamically. It automatically frees up the space used by non-running methods and components. As a result, memory leaks are reduced, and every function receives a fair share of configured memory.

Additionally, .NET 8 also supports server-side garbage collection or GC operations. This allows you to benefit from DATAS (Dynamic Adaptation To Application Sizes). This means that the heap count will be decreased and increased according to the application size and current requirement, providing better throughput and memory footprint.

Therefore, garbage collection in .NET 8 helps improve performance by freeing up space for non-utilized components and allowing dynamic heap count.

Extension Library Optimization

Along with the overall improvements in .NET 8, the extension libraries and frameworks, such as entity framework, Blazor, and ASP.NET Core, are also optimized. Their functioning and core components are modified to fewer resources and unleash the complete application potential for faster request execution.

Mainly, APIs are updated for the secure and faster transfer of data between multiple information systems, services, and databases. Besides this, the following components are re-engineered, including but not limited to:

• Routing
• Model binding
• Query capabilities
• JavaScript interoperability

Besides this, the new improvements let developers use C# programming language rather than JS for every individual purpose. And that’s how .NET 8 apps maintain and optimize their performance.

Better Serialization

In .NET version 8, a total of six new configurations are made to improve the serialization and deserialization of the “System.Text.Json” file. With the following modifications, the overall application performance is increased by up to 30%. The improvements include:

• The init and required properties are now supported for serialization.
• Custom methods can be implemented to manage the members that aren’t available in the JSON payload.
• Native AOT is optimized for better reliability and performance.
• For the JsonSerializerOptions instances, explicit control is provided in .NET 8.
• The “AddContext()” method is now replaced with “TypeInfoResolverChain” and “TypeInfoResolver” properties.
• The compiler-generated types are now supported, letting the System.Text.Json determine serialization supertype dynamically and at runtime.

Networking Optimization

Nowadays, most of the applications provide real-time functionalities and they need to communicate with numerous services and databases simultaneously. To maintain the connection with all connected systems, the networking should be robust, and to do so, .NET 8 comes with some superlative improvements. Most of the modifications are for parsing, formatting, and manipulating as bytes.

Firstly, the IPV6 address storage is improved to save large memory allocations. Now, developers can fix the endianness with vector instructions and also use the span targets. Secondly, the overhead processing of endpoint converting in API is eliminated permanently and the data already present in array is now not passed.

Furthermore, the networking primitive “Uri” has been optimized by removing numerous substring allocations and replacing them with spans. Also, the unsafe code parsing is removed. Now, the .NET applications can only parse span-based code to ensure utmost performance and security for every networking-oriented operation.

Vectorization

Improving vectorization has been ongoing in the past few versions of the .NET, such as versions 6 and 7. In .NET 7, the .NET was able to process 128 and 256 bits simultaneously. It uses the system hardware to support the execution so that it can completed within a short time and with utmost accuracy.

In Microsoft dot net framework version 8, its components are modified to process 512 bits, leading to process up to 16 ints in a single cycle. However, it’s only possible if the machine used by the end user supports it. Due to this, the .NET 8 is considered more efficient and has a higher performance than other Microsoft development frameworks.  

What’s the Best Way to Leverage Performance Improvements in .NET 8?

The best and most reliable as well as affordable way to leverage .NET and its performance improvements is to hire .NET developers. The dot net professionals understand the technology from the core and know the correct procedures to configure newly released methods and modifications.

Further, once the newly added modules are configured for high performance of the .NET 8 app, they must be thoroughly tested per industry-defined benchmarks. By following these two potential tips and optimizing components of .NET 8, a top-notch performance can be achieved.

Concluding Up

.NET 8 is currently the latest version of the Microsoft development framework. It comes with multiple improvements, focusing on increasing application performance. Primarily, the core components, such as Native AOT, JIT, networking methods, VM, garbage collection, and much more, are modified.

After reviewing all the changes, it’s concluded that .NET 8 works faster than all other versions. Also, it’s recommended that you migrate from outdated versions to this latest one to achieve better business and technical metrics.