[OT] Re: [Gdal-dev] Proposal for Unified Windows Binaries

[Mateusz Loskot]

Joaquim Luis wrote:
> Mateusz Loskot wrote:
>>> A test case that I'm working with showed a dramatic reduction in 
>>> running time using this compiler. from 2 min 50 sec (exe compiled
>>> with MSVC6) to 1:50
>>> 
>> 
>> It's not a surprise, because Visual C++ 6.0 is a dinosaur and it 
>> doesn't fit well to modern CPUs regarding optimization.
>> 
>> Have you tried Visual C++ 8.0 or at least 7.1?
>> 
> 
> Mateusz, OK, I tried with 7.1 as well. The times are now 2:25 min 
> (VC6) 2:05 min (VC7.1) 1:20 min (Intel)

Joaquim,

Please, show compilation options you used for every test
case + source code, otherwise I'm not able to compare it.
Your result does also depend on your hardware and many other factors.
"It's still very relative" as one guru said
(http://www.coyotegulch.com/reviews/linux_compilers/)

My opinion in short: Visual C++ 8.0 is a very well optimizing compiler.
Run-time differences between GCC, Intel C/C++ and Visual C++ are almost
unnoticeable for a common user, because all these compiler perform very
well and nowadays we won't observe anything
like "GCC is 2 x slower than Intel".
The situation is different on particular platform, with very
specific settings for run-time and memory optimization, on a very
specific hardware like embedded devices with "hardware specific"
limitations.

IMHO, today we need good and comparable support of C/C++ language
implementation more, provided by all compilers on the market.

Cheers
-- 
Mateusz Loskot
http://mateusz.loskot.net