Is Excel VBA's Rnd() really this bad?

Question

I need a pseudo random number generator for 2D Monte Carlo simulation that doesn\'t have the characteristic hyperplanes that you get with simple LCGs. I tested the random nu

Answer 1

To yield a better random generator and to make its performance faster, I modified your code like this:

Const N = 1000           'Put this on top of your code module
Sub ZoomRNG()

Dim RandXY(1 To N, 1 To 3) As Single, i As Single, x As Single, y As Single

For i = 1 To N
    Randomize            'Put this in the loop to generate a better random numbers
    Do
        x = Rnd
        y = Rnd
        If x > 0.5 And x < 0.51 Then
            If y > 0.5 And y < 0.51 Then
                RandXY(i, 1) = i
                RandXY(i, 2) = x
                RandXY(i, 3) = y
                Exit Do
            End If
        End If
    Loop
Next
Cells(1, 9).Resize(N, 3) = RandXY
End Sub

I obtain this after plotting the result

The result looks better than your code's output. Modifying the above code a little bit to something like this

Const N = 1000
Sub ZoomRNG()

Dim RandXY(1 To N, 1 To 3) As Single, i As Single, x As Single, y As Single

For i = 1 To N
    Randomize
    Do
        x = Rnd
        If x > 0.5 And x < 0.51 Then
            y = Rnd
            If y > 0.5 And y < 0.51 Then
                RandXY(i, 1) = i
                RandXY(i, 2) = x
                RandXY(i, 3) = y
                Exit Do
            End If
        End If
    Loop
Next
Cells(1, 9).Resize(N, 3) = RandXY
End Sub

yields a better result than the previous one

Sure the Mersenne Twister MT19937 in C++ is still better, but the last result is quite good for conducting Monte-Carlo simulations. FWIW, you might be interested in reading this paper: On the accuracy of statistical procedures in Microsoft Excel 2010.