3 ms·
This looks pretty interesting and may well be an improvement over PCG[1]. For non-simulation purposes, however, using a fast-key-erasure[2] ChaCha20 or AES-256
by beefhash 7y ago
This looks pretty interesting and may well be an improvement over PCG[1].
For non-simulation purposes, however, using a fast-key-erasure[2] ChaCha20 or AES-256-CTR RNG has served me well enough, and doesn't leave me worrying if maybe someone could abuse the RNG for whatever purposes (e.g. cheating in a game by using RNG manipulation).
[1] https://www.pcg-random.org/ https://www.pcg-random.org/
[2] https://blog.cr.yp.to/20170723-random.html https://blog.cr.yp.to/20170723-random.html
- SeanLuke 7y ago> This looks pretty interesting and may well be an improvement over PCG[1]. Like this website, the PCG website also makes rather bold claims and has no peer review to back it up. What's the deal with this?
- FabHK 7y agoGood question. I wish, as in the romantic ideal of science, a consensus would emerge of what “the best” PRNG are, and how to choose among them. Instead, you seem to have many academics promoting their own ones (Vigna with the xoroshiro family, O’Neill with PCG, now this guy Overton with Romu). And in effect every programming language has to go and make sensible default choices, while the experts in PRNG refuse to make unambiguous recommendations. (FWIW, I’d advocate to have, by default, a cryptographically secure PRNG, and offer a choice of faster ones (like the three mentioned above) that have to be chosen explicitly, maybe naming them InsecureXYZ, for applications where speed is paramount.)
- clarry 7y agoI doubt there's ever going to be consensus. That's because requirements are generally ambiguous, and you make tradeoffs based on them.
- FabHK 7y agoAgreed, but even a simple flowchart/decision diagram is not given (if you require this, choose that). At its most basic, we have cryptographically secure & unpredictable, vs. fast: those two should be offered in the standard library of any language, IMHO - not the Meraner Twister.
- raphlinus 7y agoI agree with you, and would say that the situation is even a bit worse. We're not really seeing individual PRNG's vying with each other, but rather families, each with a wide range of configuration parameters and tradeoffs. I would like to see a systematic comparison, some way of arriving at an answer to the question of which of these is "best."
- zokier 7y ago> Instead, you seem to have many academics promoting their own ones I suspect that large part of the problem is that there are not all that many academics in the field, promoting their own or otherwise. Ultra high speed PRNGs are just a bit of a niche, and the widely used stuff is already good enough for many industry uses.
- bitminer 7y agoThe PCG website is peer review. There are explanations and analyses of numerous algorithms. O'Neill also uses the same methods to study PCG.