CPU

PICO-8 keeps track of CPU usage using two values: Lua cycles and system cycles. Most operations affect Lua cycles, but some functions have an additional system cycle cost.

There are 4194304 cycles in a second (2^22), so about 69905 cycles per frame at 60 FPS, or 139810 cycles at 30 FPS. The function call stat(1) returns the total (Lua + system) cycle ratio for the current frame, and stat(2) returns the system ratio.

Example: since cls() uses 2 Lua cycles and 1024 system cycles, PICO-8 running at 60 FPS can call cls() about 2^22/60/1026 = 68 times.

Lua cycles

Some standard Lua operation costs: (tested on 0.1.12c)

• Access to global variables or local variables from another function: 1 cycle per access. (Only local variables within same function avoid this cost)

• Assignment statement: minimum 1 cycle per assignment, does not combine with other costs. (E.g. 'a=b' and 'a=b+c' both cost only 1 cycle, 'a,b=b,a' costs 2)
• Regular arithmetic operators: 1 cycle (note that x^y is excluded - has an additional varying system cost)
• Logical operators: for a chain of N and/or operators, of which K are evaluated (not short-circuited), the cost is K+1 cycles. ('not' is 1 cycle). (E.g. 'a and b and c' costs 1, 2, or 3, depending on how many are evaluated)
• Relational operators: if directly inside an if/while condition: 0 cycle. If directly inside a logical operator: 1 cycle total for all relational operators within that chain of logical operators. If directly inside something else: 2 cycles. (E.g. 'a==b==c' and, 'a==a and b==b and c==c' both cost 4 cycles)
• String concatenation: 3 cycles
• Table element access: 1 cycle
• Table construction: 1+n+L cycles, where n is the number of elements, and L is 1 if some of the elements are list-style (without an explicit key) or otherwise 0. (E.g. {a,b} is 4 cycles, but {[1]=a,[2]=b} is 3 cycles. Funny)
• Function call: 3+n cycles, where n is the number of arguments
• Function return: n cycles, where n is the number of return values. (returning no values costs 0 cycles)
• If statement: roughly 1 cycle per evaluated if/elseif.
• While loop: roughly 1 cycle per iteration.
• Numeric for loop: 5+n, where n is the number of iterations.
• do … end: 0 cycles

Lua CPU stats are only updated every 1024 cycles.

Functions that add negative Lua cycles

Some functions have negative Lua cycles associated with them that get subtracted from the Lua cycle count by the PICO-8 runtime. This mechanism allows PICO-8 to make these functions artificially cheaper.

For instance, shl(x,y) should cost 4 cycles because it is a function call with two arguments, but each call subtracts 3 cycles from the Lua cycle counter, for a total of 1 cycle.

The table below lists functions that have their total cost tweaked in this way.

Function	Adjusted cycles	Notes
peek(x), peek2(x), peek4(x)	1	only when called with 1 argument
poke(x,y)	1	only when called with 2 arguments
poke2(x,y), poke4(x,y)	2	only when called with 2 arguments
band(x,y), bor(x,y), bxor(x,y)	1	only when called with 2 arguments
bnot(x)	1	only when called with 1 argument
shl(x,y), shr(x,y), lshr(x,y)	1	only when called with 2 arguments
rotl(x,y), rotr(x,y)	1	only when called with 2 arguments
flr(x), ceil(x)	1	only when called with 1 argument

Notable math functions that do not have negative cycles are: sgn(x), abs(x), the comparison functions, and the trigonometric functions.

System cycles

Only a few functions consume system cycles. Note that they will add to their standard Lua cycle cost.

System CPU stats are updated after each call.

Here is the list, measured on PICO-8 1.1.11g:

Function	Cycles	Notes
cls()	1024	same cost as rectfill of same size
print()	2+n*8	n is the number of characters in the string, even those not rendered spaces, newlines, and double-width glyphs each count as one character
spr()	n	n is the number of pixels drawn, including transparent pixels (width × height of the sprite rectangle) cost is 0 if first argument is outside the [0, 255] range
sspr()	n	n is the number of pixels drawn, including transparent pixels (width × height of the destination rectangle)
rect()	max(1,2*ceil(a/4)) + max(0,2*ceil(b/2-1))	Where: w,h = abs(x2-x1),abs(y2-y1) a,b = max(w,h),min(w,h)
rectfill()	max(1,flr(n/16))	n is the number of pixels drawn (width × height)
circ()	2+n*4	warning: that formula is incomplete for clipped circles
circfill()	n*flr((n+9)/4)	warning: that formula is incomplete for clipped circles
line()	ceil(n/2)	n is the number of pixels drawn; there is an additional cost of 1 if at least one pixel had to be clipped
map() / mapdraw()	max(1,n*64)	n is the number of sprites rendered; only cells that are not zero in the map are considered
music()	16	no cost if no argument
sfx()	16	no cost if no argument
memcpy()	n+1	n is the number of bytes copied
memset()	max(1,ceil(n/2))	n is the number of bytes set
reload()	max(1,n*8)	n is the number of bytes reloaded
btn()	4	no cost if no argument
btnp()	4	no cost if no argument
rnd()	4
sqrt()	24	only 16 if argument is zero
x^y	8*(n+1)	n is the position of the last fractional bit in y; for instance, cost is 8 for any integer such as y == 13, and is 8*3 for y == 1.25
stat()	16