Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 13:09:01 04/19/02
Go up one level in this thread
On April 19, 2002 at 02:20:45, Michael Williams wrote: >On April 18, 2002 at 21:46:43, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On April 18, 2002 at 16:33:55, Martin Andersen wrote: >> >>>On April 18, 2002 at 16:10:02, Sally Weltrop wrote: >>> >>>>A Japanese machine records the fastest "floating point" calculation >>>>speed - over 35 trillion calculations per second. This is five times >>>>faster than the previous record holder, IBM's ASCI White system. >>>> >>>>http://www.processrequest.com/apps/redir.asp?link=XbddafaeBG >>> >>>I'm no expert, but I don't think chess programs use floating >>>point calculations. >>> >>>Martin >> >> >>Only because on PC machines, integer math is faster. If FP was faster, >>we'd all be using that. On some machines, it is faster.. > >Would you be so kind as to elaborate on this (fp)? >I'd really appreciate it, and I'm also pretty ignorant on such matters. >Thanks in advance. Not sure what you mean. Floating Point (FP) is a different way of representing numbers so that you get an exponent thrown in so that very large/small numbers can be represented, while with integers everything is in units of 1... Most machines do FP in a separate pipeline which means that some FP can proceed concurrently with other integer operations, which can make using them faster than doing purely integer calculations.
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