| Re: Dual Core Apple "MacBook", and RSI's Mac Intel plans [message #46959 is a reply to message #46940] |
Fri, 13 January 2006 14:29   |
Kenneth P. Bowman
Messages: 585
Registered: May 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
In article <pan.2006.01.13.17.56.06.516548@as.arizona.edu>,
JD Smith <jdsmith@as.arizona.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 15:55:32 +0000, Ricardo Bugalho wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> a couple of points, depending on your interest: - Mac OS X for Intel won't
>> emulate Altivec. So, if IDL makes any use of it, IDL might not run. OTOH,
>> unlike SSE, Altivec never supported double precision so it's likely IDL
>> won't use it. - If you don't care about Mac OS X and just want Apple's
>> tradicional quality in laptops, you might be able to install Linux on it.
>
> It turns out IDL does use a small bit of Altivec on a very few basic
> operations. I had thought it used none, but was corrected. So this
> means that IDL likely will *not* run under Rosetta (the new
> on-they-fly PPC->Intel translator). The main question is, does IDL
> run on a G3 processor? It certainly used to, back in the day, so it
> probably still does, which means when Rosetta tells IDL it is a G3, it
> may well fall back on some slower code and not choke. SSE is another
> kettle of fish. In a year's time, probably well over 75% of IDL's
> user base will be running on the same processor architecture.
> Thinking about using SSE/SIMD is probably a good idea (and they are).
>
> JD
This is from one of the Mac rumor sites:
> In a note to clients on Friday, American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu
> said checks with sources indicate that the upcoming release of Mac OS X
> 10.4.4 for Intel runs well, with noticeable improvements to the Rosetta
> PowerPC emulation environment that improve backward compatibility with
> AltiVec support.
>
> "We believe this will alleviate concerns that older software that hasn't been
> ported to Intel will run well without a recompile," Wu wrote.
But I suspect this is minor compared to ensuring that third party
software runs.
Ken Bowman
|
|
|
|
comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Members
Search
Help
Login
Home
