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Re: libmoto PowerPC-optimized math library?



At 12:50 AM -0700 8/17/2000, C.M. Connelly wrote:
My housemate then did a search for ``PowerPC math library
Motorola'', and found libmoto.a, an optimized math library created
by Motorola back in 1996, and released under a free-as-in-beer
license (only as object code, and with license restrictions on
redistribution).

With that library, the sample code ran in something like 1/10 the
time.

As I seem to recall, this library caused a lot of compatibility problems because it used less precise calculations (I think it used some sort of lookup table) that would throw some programs off...

ahhh here we go:
http://www.macledge.com/netgames/performance_Sys8.html

at the bottom of that page is some heat from Alex Rosenberg (Myth, Bungie, MrC developer) basically saying that LibMoto produces very inaccurate results, and that it was only developed to get better benchmarks with Motorola's compilers.

Take it all with a grain of salt, but before worrying about porting to debian I'd look into the accuracy issues.

Graeme
--
"It really is coming down to just Apple and IBM. If, for some reason, we make some giant mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years."
Steve Jobs, Playboy February 1985



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