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Kimi K3 beat GLM 5.2 on three procedural @threejs scenes (late‑80s NES living…

2026-07-21 · 13:23 UTC ·@adxtyahq ·3 min read

Brief

Kimi K3 outperformed GLM 5.2 in a head‑to‑head on three fully procedural single‑file three.js scenes (NES, vintage road bike drivetrain, glass aquarium) run on AimlAPI: Kimi cost $1.02 vs GLM $1.57, used 193,632 vs 286,263 tokens, and produced 3,114 vs 3,762 lines of code. Despite GLM doing ~3× more internal reasoning (e.g., 171k vs 66k reasoning chars on the NES prompt), its outputs were darker, slower, and contained larger mechanical and geometry mistakes. Kimi delivered warmer, more readable lighting and fewer/smaller defects (bike missing crank arms; aquarium with ~10 fish and smooth frame‑rates), while GLM rendered gloomier scenes, lagged on the aquarium, and mishandled the bike drivetrain. The author argues this shows more reasoning does not guarantee better model output and cites Kimi’s top debut on the Code Arena leaderboard (1679) over GLM (1587).

Why it matters

Kimi K3 beat GLM 5.2 on three procedural @threejs scenes (late‑80s NES living room, vintage road bike drivetrain, glass aquarium) while costing $1.02 vs $1.57 per run and using 193,632 vs 286,263 tokens (Kimi ~32% fewer tokens).

Key details

  • Lines of code and generation time: GLM produced 3,762 lines in 64.0 min vs Kimi 3,114 lines in 70.6 min; cost per 100 shipped lines was $0.033 for Kimi vs $0.042 for GLM.
  • GLM performed roughly 3x more internal reasoning (example: 171k vs 66k reasoning chars on the NES prompt) but that extra reasoning correlated with gloomier lighting and more functional bugs rather than better output.
  • Scene-level outcomes: NES — tie (Kimi warm/readable, GLM moody/dark); bike — Kimi wins (missing crank arms so pedals spin in air) while GLM had fused handlebars, misaligned window and frozen pedals; aquarium — Kimi decisive (~10 schooling fish, bright, smooth with minor NaN warnings) vs GLM near‑black murk with invisible fish and low FPS.
Source evidence

IF YOU STILL THINK MORE REASONING ALWAYS MEANS BETTER OUTPUT, YOU HAVEN'T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION

Kimi K3 went head-to-head with GLM 5.2 on 3 procedural @threejs games

• Late-80s NES
• Vintage Road Bike
• Glass Aquarium

Cost per run:

• Kimi K3 - $1.02
• GLM 5.2 - $1.57

Kimi used 32% fewer tokens and nearly 3x less reasoning, yet produced better scenes overall

The open model race is getting really interesting

Video

thehype. (@thehypedotnews)

kimi k3 vs glm 5.2

@kimimoonshot k3 just knocked @zaiorg's glm 5.2 out of the top 3 on code @arena | webdev:

• #1 kimi-k3 – 1679 (debuts straight at the top, preliminary)
• #2 claude-fable-5 – 1631
• #3 gpt-5.6-sol-xhigh – 1618
• #4 glm-5.2 (max) – 1587

glm was sitting in the top 3. kimi walked in at #1 and shoved it down to 4th. so we put the two of them head to head

our test – 3 prompts, single-file html, @threejs, fully procedural, no assets, orbitcontrols, pcfsoft shadows, acesfilmic + srgb:

• late-80s living room – an original nes wired to a crt that is actively playing a period-correct pixel game, drawn live to a canvastexture, plus a working tv power toggle

• vintage steel road bike on a kickstand in a workshop – real drivetrain kinematics: turn the pedals, the cranks drive the chainring, the chain drives the rear sprocket, both wheels spin at the correct gear ratio

• glass aquarium in a quiet study – 8–15 boids fish of several species with tail undulation, transmissive glass, caustics, bubble streams, a feed button

we ran it on @aimlapi

results:

  • cost:

    1 kimi k3 – $1.02

2 glm 5.2 – $1.57

  • tokens:

    1 kimi k3 – 193,632

2 glm 5.2 – 286,263

  • lines of code:

    1 glm 5.2 – 3,762

2 kimi k3 – 3,114

  • generation time:

    1 glm 5.2 – 64.0 min

2 kimi k3 – 70.6 min

observations:

• kimi is cheaper and lighter – 35% less money, 32% fewer tokens – for three working scenes. per 100 shipped lines it's $0.033 vs glm's $0.042

• glm reasons roughly 3x harder than kimi (171k vs 66k reasoning chars on the nes alone). you're paying for a longer argument with itself, not a bigger answer

• kimi handles light better. every one of its rooms is bright, warm and readable. glm renders everything in gloom: a "saturday evening" nes room you have to squint at, an aquarium so dark you lose the fish in it. same prompt, same tone-mapping instruction, opposite result

the scenes:

• nes – tie, both nailed it. kimi warm and cozy, glm moody and dark, both fully working

• bike – kimi wins. its only flaw: no crank arms, so the pedals spin in the air. glm broke more: handlebars fused to the front wheel, window perpendicular to the wall, pedals frozen on the cranks

• aquarium – kimi in a landslide. bright, ~10 fish schooling, runs smooth (minor nan console warnings). glm's is near-black murk you can't find the fish in, and it lags at low fps

a note in fairness to both: nobody nailed the bike drivetrain. the pedals, cranks and wheels linkage is the single hardest mechanical ask in the set, and each model fudged it its own way: kimi dropped the cranks, glm froze the pedals.

kimi k3 is the stronger model here. it's cheaper, lighter on tokens, lights a room properly, and ships fewer and smaller mistakes across all three scenes. it earns that #1 spot

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Video

— https://nitter.net/thehypedotnews/status/2079553731218325840#m