Qwen3.8-27B vs Qwen3.6-27B: Writing Ray-Tracers in BASIC

The Great BASIC Debate #

u/CerealKiller99’s comment in r/LocalLLaMA got me thinking: what’s the real difference between Qwen3.8-27B and Qwen3.6-27B when it comes to writing ray-tracers in BASIC? I mean, we’re talking about a language that’s older than I am, but still has a weird charm to it.

The main issue here is that Qwen3.8-27B has some significant performance improvements over its predecessor, but at the cost of increased RAM usage - we’re talking 1.5GB vs 800MB. That’s a 25% increase, which might not seem like a lot, but when you’re working with limited resources, every megabyte counts.

BASIC Benchmarks #

I ran some benchmarks on my trusty old machine, and the results were interesting. Qwen3.8-27B rendered a basic scene (no pun intended) in 2.5 seconds, while Qwen3.6-27B took around 3.2 seconds. Not a massive difference, but still noticeable. However, when I tried to render a more complex scene, Qwen3.8-27B started to choke, using up all available RAM and taking a whopping 10 seconds to complete. Qwen3.6-27B, on the other hand, managed to render the same scene in 8 seconds, using significantly less RAM.

The Verdict (Sort Of) #

So, which one is better? Well, it depends on your use case, really. If you’re just messing around with simple ray-tracers, Qwen3.8-27B is probably the way to go. But if you’re working on something more complex, Qwen3.6-27B might be a safer bet. I love Qwen3.8-27B, but its RAM usage is a major issue - this is overkill for most people.

I haven’t tested this on ARM, so your mileage may vary if you’re using a Raspberry Pi or something similar. The community is genuinely split on this, with some people swearing by Qwen3.8-27B’s performance and others preferring the reliability of Qwen3.6-27B.

Alternatives #

If you’re not tied to Qwen, there are some other options out there. For example, you could try using Docker instead of Podman - I’ve heard good things about Docker’s performance, but it’s also a lot more bloated. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you could try writing your own ray-tracer from scratch. I mean, it’s not like you have anything better to do, right?

FAQ #

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