C vs C#: racing VLC's Gaussian blur
Summary
This article compares a Gaussian blur implementation in VLC written in C with a line-by-line port in C# using VLCLR and Native AOT. It shows an initial ~23% slower performance for C#, which narrows through loop-bound hoisting and type optimizations, and further improvements with algorithmic and SIMD optimizations that bring the two approaches closer in speed. The takeaway is that C# is a viable option for CPU-bound VLC plugins, though C remains fastest at peak performance.