Thanks, Mario. After implementing this suggestion I get the following with my real data: 

Benchmark: timing 5 iterations of MCE loop             , MCE loop/batc
+h gather, MCE map              , Sequential loop      ...
MCE loop             : 56 wallclock secs ( 1.26 usr  0.57 sys + 36.11 
+cusr 42.06 csys = 80.00 CPU) @  0.06/s (n=5)
MCE loop/batch gather: 57 wallclock secs ( 0.55 usr  0.17 sys + 36.20 
+cusr 40.75 csys = 77.67 CPU) @  0.06/s (n=5)
MCE map              : 66 wallclock secs ( 3.75 usr  0.32 sys + 36.34 
+cusr 40.67 csys = 81.08 CPU) @  0.06/s (n=5)
Sequential loop      : 73 wallclock secs (35.16 usr + 28.66 sys = 63.8
+2 CPU) @  0.08/s (n=5)

[download]

Surprisingly the batching didn't seem to help. Going to keep working with it. Also thanks for your PMs.

The way forward always starts with a minimal test.

In reply to Re^3: MCE -- how to know which function to use by 1nickt
in thread MCE -- how to know which function to use by 1nickt

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.