11 videos · 8 hr 23 minMechanical Sympathy
A path through the performance talks Hacker News keeps linking whenever someone asks why software got slow. It starts with mindset (don't do needless work), moves to the memory hierarchy and data-oriented design, then to measuring honestly, and ends with two console war stories where all of it pays off.
Play all on YouTube- 118:41
Refterm Lecture Part 1 - Philosophies of Optimization
Molly Rocket · Picked by 10 · 2021–2026An 18-minute opener that separates real optimization from 'non-pessimization', the idea HN cites most often to explain why modern software is slow.
- 219:25
New computers don't speed up old code
Matthias random stuff · Picked by 3 · 2025Matthias Wandel benchmarks old and new PCs and finds branchy code barely got faster in 15 years, which is why the rest of this list matters.
- 31:16:58
code::dive conference 2014 - Scott Meyers: Cpu Caches and Why You Care
NOKIA Technology Center Wrocław · Picked by 3 · 2018–2023The plain explanation of cache levels and associativity that HN points to for why memory layout beats pointer chasing.
- 41:27:46
CppCon 2014: Mike Acton "Data-Oriented Design and C++"
CppCon · Picked by 9 · 2015–2026With the cache model in hand, Acton's blunt argument that a program's job is transforming data lands much harder; it is HN's default data-oriented design talk.
- 5
46:40Andrew Kelley: A Practical Guide to Applying Data Oriented Design (DoD)
ChimiChanga · Picked by 4 · 2024–2026The practical follow-up to Acton: struct-of-arrays and compact layouts applied to a real compiler, with measured wins in Zig.
- 6
59:34CppCon 2017: Matt Kulukundis “Designing a Fast, Efficient, Cache-friendly Hash Table, Step by Step”
CppCon · Picked by 9 · 2018–2026One data structure redesigned around the cache, step by step; HN calls it the definitive explanation of SwissTable, now behind Rust's and Go's maps.
- 7
59:11How to Speed up a Python Program 114,000 times.
InfoQ · Picked by 3 · 2015–2022Proof this is not just a C++ story: a generalist's tour of pipelining and cache effects that HN liked for its humor and hardware knowledge.
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42:59"How NOT to Measure Latency" by Gil Tene
Strange Loop Conference · Picked by 9 · 2015–2026The turn from making things fast to knowing whether they are; commenters call the coordinated omission material life changing.
- 9
42:15"Performance Matters" by Emery Berger
Strange Loop Conference · Picked by 12 · 2019–2025Shows that code layout alone can swamp your optimization, and offers causal profiling as the fix; HN's standard answer to mysterious benchmark swings.
- 10
18:20FIXING the ENTIRE SM64 Source Code (INSANE N64 performance)
Kaze Emanuar · Picked by 7 · 2022–2025Everything above applied to a real console: Kaze finds bus contention and easy wins that make Mario 64 render several times faster.
- 11
31:37How Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation | War Stories | Ars Technica
Ars Technica · Picked by 13 · 2020–2026The closer and the most-recommended war story here: Andy Gavin overwriting Sony's own library code in RAM to make the game fit.