C++ Clear Winner in Google Language Benchmark
Linked by ebasconp on Fri 10th Jun 2011 22:22 UTC
Benchmarks "Google has released a research paper that suggests C++ is the best-performing programming language in the market. The internet giant implemented a compact algorithm in four languages - C++, Java, Scala and its own programming language Go - and then benchmarked results to find 'factors of difference'."
E-mail Print r 5   99 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/j63
Thread beginning with comment 477063
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[3]: GCC isn't all that great
by Carewolf on Mon 13th Jun 2011 09:45 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: GCC isn't all that great"
Carewolf
Member since:
2005-09-08

After identifying that gcc didn't perform these optimization have you considered trying gcc with the options to enable them? -funroll-loops -ftree-vectorize.

It is not fun blaming the compiler for not doing optimizations it hasn't been asked to do. I know the default optimizations suck, but that is a well known problem with gcc.

The auto-vectorizer isn't very good with integers, but give it a try.

Edited 2011-06-13 09:46 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

Neolander Member since:
2010-03-08

Aren't those supposed to be automatically enabled by O2 or O3 ?

Reply Parent Score: 1

Carewolf Member since:
2005-09-08

Depends on the gcc-version.

I just double-checked: According to info:gcc the most recent version (4.6) has enabled -ftree-vectorize on -O3, but still not -funroll-loops.

Unrolling is only default enabled if you compile with profiling-data that helps the compiler to unroll the correct loops.

Reply Parent Score: 2

Read more of this thread... >
Alfman Member since:
2011-01-28

Carewolf,

Thanks for the feedback.

For me GCC does use SSE for me with and without '-ftree-vectorize' (when I tweak the C source code).

I couldn't get GCC to do vector math without changing the source file to calculate the number of loops for GCC. In a case as simple as this, the compiler should have been able to handle it.

I know Valhalla is complaining about this specific example (not sure why?), but I do frequently come across issues like this in much more complex code where GCC misses an equally trivial optimization.

Reply Parent Score: 2

Carewolf Member since:
2005-09-08

I also rarely see GCC vectorizing integer loops (it seems to choke on signed vs unsigned), GCC does slightly better with floating-point loops, and it helps if you allow it to break some strict math rules.

As I noted in another comment the newest version of gcc now has -ftree-vectorize in -O3, so I was not fully up to date in my first reply.

If you compile to AMD64, SSE is automatically used for all math (not vectorized, one value at a time). You can also use SSE for math in IA32 using -mfpmath=sse. SSE math is generally much faster but removes the 80bit temporaries quirk 487 math has.

Reply Parent Score: 2

Read more of this thread... >