[Gridflow-dev] MMX -vs- 64-bit

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Claude Heiland-Allen wrote:

> I just tried to configure 9.10 and SVN trunk and ran into some 64-bit 
> compatibility issue, so I investigated a bit (64-bit ABI is rather 
> different to 32-bit, it seems...).

The asm code in GridFlow is quite obsolete for that reason and because it 
never went any further than 5 opcodes in only uint8 and int16 types.

I expect the new code to be using SSE and be written in C using GF's SSE 
extensions.

> In short, I think it might be better to switch to 'orc'[1] or something 
> like it, than to maintain custom asm code generators. Though, 
> 'liboil'[2] was around for 'only' 6 years or so..

The problem is more that the version of liboil bundled with Ubuntu 9.10 is 
0.3.16 and there is no orc in the packages. But then, as long as it stays 
an optional thing, I'd enjoy having something like that. Do you think GF 
could start using plain liboil now and use orc later, or should it use orc 
right away ? I mean, is it very long to switch frorm liboil to orc, and is 
liboil a good intermediate step in learning orc ?

If you make either a liboil or orc component that GF can use instead of 
mmx.rb, then I will remove mmx.rb.

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| Mathieu Bouchard, Montréal, Québec. téléphone: +1.514.383.3801