Re: PC164LX running slow
On Tue, Jan 05, 1999 at 02:14:47AM -0600, Bob McElrath wrote:
> 2) Alpha is 64 bit RISC. each instruction is 64 bits. On Intel, each
> instruction varies in length (from 8 bit up to monster ones >128bit) but you
> can generally encode a given task into fewer Intel instructions (and space)
> than the equivalent on alpha. Thus, alpha binaries are bigger. Alpha
> object files are bigger. all the intermediary object files in compiling a
> kernel are bigger. You quickly slam up against memory bandwith here.
>
> Large Kernel compile time just reflects the fact that Intel binaries are
> smaller, nothing else.
Also, gcc/egcs for the Alpha has some poor performance
characteristics. Some of the Alpha-specific optimizations have
O(n^2) or worse performance, according to a mail rth sent to axp-list
a while back. This means that the compiler is slower when generating
code for Alpha than for other platforms (x86 included).
Anybody out there ever cross-compiled a kernel from Alpha to x86?
Seems like an interesting exercise.
Note that I don't actually _know_ anything about this from personal
experience, just parroting stuff I've read.
-andy
--
Andy Isaacson adisaacs@mtu.edu adi@acm.org Fight Spam, join CAUCE:
http://www.csl.mtu.edu/~adisaacs/ http://www.cauce.org/
Reply to: