[Radiance-general] OS X G5 performace [was: No more Mr. Nice Guy]

[Thomas Bleicher]

This is a correction for my own whining about poor Radiance
perfomance on my iMac G5 according to the bench4 test at

     http://mark.technolope.org/pages/rad_bench.html


On 16.12.2005, at 22:10, Greg Ward wrote:

> I completed my tests on my G4 PowerBook, and the difference is even  
> greater
> than with the G5 desktop.  These are the results:
>
> Radiance Speed Comparisons			
> 	Highest	Automatic	Reduced
> G5, nice=0	90.9	91.1	182.2
> G5, nice=+6	90.9	166.1	182.4
> G4, nice=0	182.8	184.6	366.7
> G4, nice=+6	184.3	365.6	367.7


I've recompiled my binaries with the new source code and heavy  
optimizing
of compiler options. With processor performace at "Highest" I get the
following result for Mark's benchmark test (details for Mark and other
compiler switch freaks out there):

rpict time:	6403.98 user
processor:	G5
num procs:	1
clock speed:	2 GHz
cache:		512 kB
OS:		OS X Tiger 10.4.3
Radiance vers:	3.8a Patch 2 (?)
compiler:	GCC 4.0.0 20041026 (build 4061)
rays:		693777405
options:	-O3 -fgcse-sm -funroll-loops -fstrict-aliasing
                 -fsched-interblock
                 -falign-loops=16 -falign-jumps=16 -falign-functions=16
                 -falign-jumps-max-skip=15 -falign-loops-max-skip=15
                 -ffast-math -freorder-blocks -freorder-blocks-and- 
partition
                 -finline-floor -mdynamic-no-pic -mpowerpc-gpopt
                 -force_cpusubtype_ALL -mtune=G5 -mcpu=G5 -mpowerpc64

Note: These options are equal to the "-fast" optimization switch of  
the gcc
       for G5 except for one missing "-malign-natural" option which  
breaks
       rpict and probably a lot of other programs.

Finally this iMac is up to the Athlon XP on Mark's page and acceptable
for a real "desktop" machine where fan noise is much more important than
render speed.


Happy holiday season and i hope everyone gets a PowerMac G5 Quad under
their christmas tree,

Thomas