Apple announced that they are using the LLVM optimizer and JIT within their Mac OS 10.5 'Leopard' OpenGL stack. LLVM will help in delivering better performance of the GL stack.
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Member since:2005-07-06
You, sir, have that completely out of order.
LLVM is an aggressively-optimizing compiler that rivals GCC for speed in almost everything, and crushes it in situations where its most advanced features (LTO and inter-procedural optimization) come into play. There's a reason that GCC was considering incorporating LLVM's optimization framework rather than continuing to extend their own. ;-)
For comparison, look at the detailed build results on http://llvm.org/nightlytest/ , particularly at the GCC/LLVM column. That's the ratio of execution time of the test compiled w/ GCC vs. compiled w/ LLVM. Notice how the majority are .9 or greater, and a significant number are >1?
Member since:2005-07-06
Thanks for the information, I'm glad to be incorrect.
Could you give me the proper URL for the benchmarks?
I couldn't find the graph you're talking about on the URL you provided, I tried to click around but frankly this website is a mess.
On the comment page of the annonce http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2006/8/17/5024 percivall says that a python compiled with LLVM is twice as slow as a python compiled with GCC, so either he made a mistake or there are still some problem for LLVM..
Member since:
2005-07-06
> It sure sounds like [LLVM is] a better solution than fat binaries and GCC or ICC.
LLVM a better solution?
More eleguant ok, but what is best is whichever has the best runtime performance, which means in that order ICC > GCC > LLVM and which suits your need, no ObjectiveC on ICC so GCC > LLVM.
Now apparently Apple is set on LLVM so they will probably work on improving its performance: it's not because OpenGL on LLVM is faster than regular OpenGL (they handmade many parts) that generic code is faster on LLVM than GCC (currently I think it is quite the opposite.).