RFC: Optimizing for 386
Dave Jones
davej at redhat.com
Wed Jan 19 16:42:19 UTC 2005
On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 10:26:51AM -0600, Joseph D. Wagner wrote:
> > They're optimized for pentium4, but use the i386 instruction set.
> There are instructions which have come out since the 386, like MMX, that
> could improve the performance of programs. In this case, graphics programs.
Many graphics programs test for features such as mmx/3dnow/sse at runtime
and run alternative hand-written assembly routines when present.
This way the program runs on any x86 platform regardless of featureset
without needing to be compiled for a specific variant.
> Why should my graphics programs suffer because some fool is running a 20
> year old computer?
You forgot to attach the benchmarks showing the improvements.
For a large percentage of the packages shipped in Fedora, RPMs 'optimised'
for >386 just won't be noticable.
Dave
More information about the fedora-devel-list
mailing list