Massive updates onscreen

This is attempting to proof the idea that making big changes to a DOM offscreen is faster than doing them onscreen. So far results are not conclusive, whether due to SVG or something else.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>SVG Swarm</title>
<style>

svg {
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
}

path {
    fill:none;
    stroke-width:1;
    stroke:#000;
}

#fps {
    font-size:50px;
    background:#fff;
}

</style>
<div id='chart'></div>
<div id="fps">FPS: <span>?</span></div>
<script src="https://d3js.org/d3.v2.min.js?2.9.1"></script>
<script>

var data = d3.range(10000);

var width = 960,
    height = 500;

var x = d3.scale.linear()
    .domain([0, 1])
    .range([0, width]);

var y = d3.scale.linear()
    .domain([0, 1])
    .range([100, height]);

var time0 = Date.now(),
    time1;

var fps = d3.select("#fps span");

var svg = d3.select("#chart").append("svg")
    .attr("width", width)
    .attr("height", height);

var g = svg.append('g').attr('width', 500).attr('height', 960);

var p = g.selectAll("circle")
    .data(data)
    .enter()
    .append('circle')
    .attr('r', 2)
    .attr('transform', function(d, i) { return 'translate(' + [x(Math.random()), y(Math.random())] + ')'; });

var fpsqueue = [];

var rb = d3.interpolateRgb('#FF0000', '#0080FF');

d3.timer(function() {
  p.attr('transform', function(d, i) { return 'translate(' + [x(Math.random()), y(Math.random())] + ')'; });

time1 = Date.now();
  if (fpsqueue.length === 100) { fps.text(d3.mean(fpsqueue).toFixed(3)); fpsqueue = []; }
  fpsqueue.push(Math.round(1000 / (time1 - time0)));
  time0 = time1;
});

</script>

Modified http://d3js.org/d3.v2.min.js?2.9.1 to a secure url

https://d3js.org/d3.v2.min.js?2.9.1