[sdiy] Quick C query

[Thomas Strathmann]

On 11/21/10 21:24 , Veronica Merryfield wrote:
>>> Obviously even if it's not strictly necessary, there's nothing wrong with
>>> enthusiasts doing it to squeeze the last possible drop of performance out of
>>> the hardware (which e.g. demo scene coders still do in the PC world).
>
> Many professionals do it all the time although an equal number seem to think that buying a faster machine is a reasonable solution too.

In demo scene productions assembly is used mostly to cut down on the 
size although tools that compress the binary before release are more 
efficient. If assembly is needed for SIMD stuff they tend to use 
compiler intrinsics. Anyway, most of the time it's about faster GPUs 
with more memory and bigger memory bandwidth than about the CPU. And GPU 
programs are usually written in high level languages like HLSL and GLSL. 
Some people may cling to hand coding assembly but it's more a 
sentimental thing (or rather doing what one excells at instead of going 
through learning the intricate interplay between C/C++ code, the 
compiler, runtime system, binary format, and compression tools). On a 
related note: Design and being convenient for artists to work with 
usually trumps squeezing out the last drop of performance. In 4k and 64k 
productions size is more important than performance.

	Thomas