🚀 go-pugleaf

Chad Irby wrote:
> 
> Robert Salasidis (salasidis@medcor.mcgill.ca) wrote:
> :
> : Nobody argues that the PPC is faster in floating point. However for most
> : users, 99% of the time is spent in integer functions. Integer benchmarks
> : show that there is very little diffeence between the 2 processors (and
> : at least the x86 camp has a Pentium Pro to upgrade to today).
> 
> That might have been the case several years ago, but with the
> availability of machines with truly fast floating-point operations, a lot
> of the modern use of computers has moved further into types of software
> that *needs* a fast FPU.
> 
> Besides the obvious things like spreadsheets and CAD, a fast floating-point
> machine is useful for lots of graphics operations, not to mention basic
> (and common) things like games and sound processing.  The list gets
> bigger every day.

All games that are worth anything use absolutely zero floating point in critical 
areas. Floating point is too inefficient, and integers are used exclusively 
(this is for all games that require real time action).

I doubt most users spend more than a few seconds doing a spreadsheet recalc, but 
I will admit there are some that do - in my circles I can safely say that most 
computers are used for common business duties, WP, database (entry, display, 
reports), games, etc. All use very little floating point. Given a choice I would 
take faster integer processing over floating point any day for my applications 
(unless I could have both).

> 
> Even some of the basic display operations (like font manipulation) are
> starting to take advantage of the faster math operations involved.
> 
> Not to mention- why should people upgrade to the Pentium Pro, unless
> they're part of the 3% or so of the market using Windows NT?  If they run
> W95 or 3.1, they'll get a *slower* machine for their money.

At 200 MHz it does run 16 bit apps faster than the 133 MHz Pentium (and probably 
the 166 as well - though I haven't seen a benchmark yet (however for 16bit apps 
I will agree power/$ is lower). Although most use Windows 95, code in a 32 bit 
app (or any 32 bit game - and most new ones are) will still run at the 32 bit 
speed (as long as a system 16 bit system call is not being used). (therefore how 
much improvement over a Pentium there will be will depend on the application).

I use UNIX for most of my development work, so I would definitely see an 
improvement (add the UNIX folks to the 3% as well)