[Gllug] On Linux, fast, it is

[John Hearns]

On Thu, 2002-06-13 at 13:38, Nix wrote:
> On 12 Jun 2002, John Hearns spake:
> > On Wed, 2002-06-12 at 15:14, Martyn Drake wrote:
> >> The fact that this processor will run either in 32-bit or 64-bit mode 
> >> will at least allow folk to run their existing applications until 
> >> developers move over to 64-bit code.
> >> 
> > Anyone know much about compilers, commercial or otherwise,
> > for these things?
> 
> GCC and the binutils have support for it, but I don't know how good/
> complete that support is.
> 
Indeed.
I'm very interested in the 128-bit vector registers,
which have obvious applications in image processing etc.

However, its not just a simple matter of flinging code at a compiler
and hoping for a speed-up - as most people on the group no doubt know.

I remember doing a tiny bit of work  on vectorising.
IBM brought out a vector unit for their 3090 series, and were 
promoting it. The Glasgow Uni group I was in  were asked to test it out.
I compiled up some of our Monte Carlo codes, and in fact IIRC things
went slower. High energy physics codes are 'embarrasingly parallel'
no-one (to my knowledge) has had much success with parallel or vector
machines. Just want lots of CPU, the faster the better.


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