Slither.io-bot: Javascript is bottleneck

[ksofiyuk]

I think if we want to create a really good bot need to use general purpose programming languages. I have some complex algorithmic solution for slither, but it seems impossible to implement it using Javascript with realtime performance.

Is there a simple way to connect the game interface with external libraries that are written in Python or C++?

P.S. I'm new in Javascript, but have a lot of experience with C++ and Python programming.

[ErmiyaEskandary]

We could use custom created client programs to connect to the server....

have a lot of experience with C++ and Python programming.

P.S: same here... JavaScript seems like a snail compared to C++ ..

[ErmiyaEskandary]

There are no existing clients written in Python or C++ or anything like that matter. Either JavaScript or HTML... :( Unless you want to make one ...

[K00sKlust]

Javascript is bottleneck

It is. Especially because it allows just one thread, which is also needed for the slither.io calculations. And I got more experience with other languages too..

A custom client program would be pretty nice :)) 👍

[ErmiyaEskandary]

Nice but hard :)

[Fredyy90]

Isn't there a way to build a small programm with a webview running slither.io and bury all logic in c/c++ and only use a small js interface?

[ErmiyaEskandary]

Accident - sorry

[ErmiyaEskandary]

@Fredyy90 It would be possible but we would still be communicating using JavaScript. Are you saying the back end would be ... And then the frontend would be js ?

[Fredyy90]

I guess we only need Js in this setup to get the data from slither.io out, to process it in c/c++ and a way to return calculated the output stuff, like mouse coordinates, speedboost etc.

[mirorauhala]

Here is a crazy idea (because I do not know C++).

A quick Googling gave me these links:
https://discuss.atom.io/t/electron-and-c-dll/17615/2
https://nodejs.org/api/addons.html#addons_hello_world

Now here's how I see it working:
Scenario 1
Make a desktop application (with ElectronJS) that is a WebView to slither.io and the user will have to use the app to play the game with the bot.

Scenario 2
An ElectronJS app on users computer will act as a WebSocket server that the browser extension can then talk to. This means that the user doesn't have to use a different application to play the game, but still requires installing an app for the complex calculations at back-end.

[ErmiyaEskandary]

@FliiFe Is'nt that what you did for Apos's bot ?

[FliiFe]

@ErmiyaEskandary It's kinda. But the backend was just sending a list of scripts to load. Implementing script in a backend is, for sure, a good idea, but that would require a lot of work.

[ErmiyaEskandary]

Agreed.

[ChadSki]

@mirorauhala good suggestions. I would add:

Scenario 3
Use asm.js to compile C++ (or other) down to fast javascript.

All of these options are interesting but complicated.

[ChadSki]

I found this StackOverflow discussion about using node-webkit (now "NW.js") to modify a website like Greasemonkey / Tampermonkey does.

With NW.js, the client-side and server-side are the same thing, so our AI could use node.js features. This also provides indirect access to C++.

[ChadSki]

Experimental SIMD technology might be useful. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/SIMD

The bonus of SIMD is that it's not terribly complicated to use -- it would still work in the browser.

tl;dr it lets you do more math at the same time.

Four math operations:

One math operation:

[FliiFe]

@ChadSki Great idea, but it looks like we will have to wait a bit...

[FliiFe]

@ChadSki Oh, and about asm, that wouldn't work since we access game variables and we modify them.

[ChadSki]

asm wouldn't work since we access game variables and we modify them.

Why wouldn't it work? asm.js code can fully interop with normal javascript.

Example interop between javascript and C++ (compiled to asm.js with emscripten).

[ChadSki]

This looks handy for the asm.js route: https://github.com/gasman/bonsai-c

bonsai-c is a tool for writing programs, not porting them. By building a C compiler from the ground up, rather than bolting a Javascript backend onto a mature C compiler, we can tailor it to the needs of Javascript programmers. You can use it to write a function for calculating fibonacci numbers, and you will get back an asm.js-compliant Javascript module with an obvious entry point, for calculating fibonacci numbers. You will not get a mountain of runtime code to implement file handling and malloc and a million other things you didn't ask for.

They have a great example of C-js interop here: https://github.com/gasman/bonsai-c/tree/master/examples/mandelbrot

To use bonsai, it looks like you run the .c -> .asm.js transpiler on your local dev machine, then add the generated code to your git commit. The transpiler runs on node.js and can be installed with npm.