Re: Blender for Alpha (fwd)

[Jeff DeMaagd <jdemaa17@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Herwin Jan Steehouwer wrote:
> > 
> > Hello Alpha experts!
> > 
> > I'm almost finished with an Alpha version of the 3D package Blender (you might
> > have heard of it...). It will be released within days, I'll announce it!
> > Right now I wonder why the performance is quite low. I expected more of an
> > Alpha! What are you using to compile Mesa? 

Well, I tried putting libffm into Mesa, I can't tell any speed difference.

Nearly any (if not all) Alphas at 300MHz+ are four issue machines, that'll
help, as the 233MHz units are only dual issue, and the 21164s are more
clock efficient per issue unit.

If you are using egcs, try adding -mcpu=21064 for your machine, although I
hope that a program optimized for 21164 should be backward compatible, but
it would not help you much.  Make sure you don't exceed opt level -O2
(unless that's been fixed in egcs).  egcs 1.1.1 improves performance over
previous versions.

You don't say if you are using similar performing video cards as the PII,
or if either is using commercial or 'free' X servers.

In general, optimizing for Alpha, outside of assembly code, tends to
improve all other RISC machines, even the Pentium line, do don't let
optimization scare you.

JRDM

> > Both Mesa and internal rendering is quite slow, let's say 3-4 times slower than
> > a P2 300.
> > I'm not interested in optimizing code for Alpha, also because I think the Mesa
> > library is well written and is a good reference for performance.
> > Has anyone compiled and tested Mesa at Alpha before, and maybe a tip for me to
> > get a better performance, e.g. compile options?
> > 
> > Someone already mentioned the improved math libraries:
> > <http://people.frankfurt.netsurf.de/Joachim.Wesner/libffm.0.28.tar.gz>
> > Maybe it helps, but I personally think it's the integer performance that makes
> > the troubles...
> > 
> > I'm not a member of this group (I alread get way to much mail!), so please 'cc'
> > a reply to ton@xxxxxxxxxxx

> >  | Ton Roosendaal                  

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