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Subject: Re: Fastest freeware C++ compiler?

Author: Tom Likens

Date: 08:19:45 12/14/03

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On December 14, 2003 at 04:43:20, Russell Reagan wrote:

>On December 14, 2003 at 01:16:48, Mike Carter wrote:
>
>>I'm working on a chess engine and the compiler I have does not seem to optimize
>>for speed.  Can anyone tell me what C++ freeware compiler creates the fastest
>>executables?  Thanks!
>
>I used to use Microsoft Visual C++ 6 Professional (because I got it for $5 from
>my school, it's normally several hundred at least). I quit using it when I saw
>that the executable that gcc/g++ created was significantly faster than the
>executable that MSVC++ 6 Pro created. Of course, VC++ 6 is over 5 years old by
>now. The point is, gcc/g++ does a pretty decent job of optimizing these days. I
>think it got some bad press from earlier versions, but it is much better at
>optimizing than it used to be. Of course, the latest Intel compiler and
>Microsoft compiler will be faster, but they'll also cost you a few hundred bucks
>(at least).
>
>I heard that the Intel C++ compiler was free for non-commercial use, or for
>Linux. I was able to find it for Linux, but I was not able to get it to install
>at all. I couldn't find a non-commercial free version for Windows. Maybe I
>didn't look hard enough. I also don't know if this version supports optimization
>(since I wasn't able to test it out). The reason I question that is because you
>can also get the Microsoft C++ compiler for free, but the free version doesn't
>do any optimization.
>
>You might try the Dev-C++ IDE, which uses the MinGW C++ compiler (gcc). For a
>free deal, it's pretty nice. I use cygwin myself (when on Windows), and good old
>gcc/vi/make when in Linux.

Hello Russell,

I have the Intel C/C++ compiler for both Windows (which I purchased) and Linux
(which I downloaded for free).  The Linux version has *all* the features that
the Windows version has, including the same optimizations (inter-procedural
optimizations, profile-guided optimizations etc.).

I use the Intel compiler and Linux as my main development environment.  I also
use the Intel compiler as a *drop-in* replacement for gcc 3.x.  My program
makes heavy use of gcc' inline assembly (using both the AT&T syntax and the
Intel format) and the Intel compiler works flawlessly.

If you're interested I could email you a copy of my makefile so that you could
see the one way to run it.  One interesting item to note, is that my main
development machine is an Athlon 1800+, and on that machine the profile-guided
optimizations work really really well (go figure).

regards,
--tom





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