Since acknex.exe is an interpreter(or sort of it)

An interpreter takes longer time to calculate the array(More Instructions)
Whereas a pointer wud just be an malloc and done.

From my experience of developing AC Interpreter.

It might be different on a compiled executable becaz indexing,etc of arrays are done while compiling.

I had experimented with a compiled program before
Object Code Comparsion:
temp = a[i];

mov eax, DWORD PTR _i
mov ecx, DWORD PTR _a[eax*4]
mov DWORD PTR _temp, ecx

temp = *p;

mov eax, DWORD PTR _p
mov ecx, DWORD PTR [eax]
mov DWORD PTR _temp, ecx

Compiled Apps make lest difference or no difference but in interpreters arrays and pointers make a lot of difference