@wolfi @icedquinn @xianc78 LuaJIT is the gold standard for JIT compilers, written in assembly and optimised relentlessly
It's used in high performence application for game logic with C side rendering (like Löve) in games/engines like the CryEngine, Factorio, Minetest, Fable, or WOW
Even plain POC Lua makes up "substantial amounts" (according to the email POC got) of games like Grim Fandango. Basically all of Tim Schafer's games use Lua and were one of the first adopters of it
https://www.lua.org/history.html (ctrl-f Grim Fandango)
It 100% meets the performance requirements of games. Especially games that are the scale you'd make it with something like RayLib
You did something wrong like loading an image inside a fast loop. My games, even the particles, works on my 4gb ARM Pinebook pro without any slight hint of slowdown