You’re right. My bad!
(I was using 5.3.4 mistakenly compiled with a different compiler.)
When compiled with the same compiler, the results are:
Lua 5.3.4 Copyright (C) 1994-2017 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
>a=os.time() for i=1,1000000000 do end print(os.time()-a)
21
c:\temp>lua54
Lua 5.4.0 (work1) Copyright (C) 1994-2018 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> a=os.time() for i=1,1000000000 do end print(os.time()-a)
14
Sorry for the noise!
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 11:24 PM
Subject: Re: Feedback on (awesome) performance of lua 5.4
(work1)