Author: KarinsDad
Date: 15:38:58 06/15/99
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On June 15, 1999 at 15:25:07, Eugene Nalimov wrote: [snip] > >My prediction is that you'll be able to use 64-bit MSVC immediately after first >IA-64 bit (Merced) will be released. At least I can use it long before that :-). >So, you'll be able to recompile program like Crafty with only minor >modifications. > >I agree that second generation IA-64 compilers will be better. But even first >generation compilers will be able to produce good code - chess programs are very >easy for optimizing compilers (no virtual calls, large functions, predictable >access to structures, etc.) And IA-64 contains a lot of concepts that will help >chess programs immediately - e.g. predications, speculations, safe prefetching, >large register file (so you can load entire board representation there), etc. > >Eugene I will paste this thread on my corkboard and when the IA-64 becomes available next year (maybe), I will keep an eye on the Microsoft Knowledge base and see how many bugs are reported on MSVC. I think that the first generation compilers will be slightly buggy. The IA-64 is not like when we went from 16 bit to 32 bit. It is a revolutionary chip design (although it is hampered with backwards compatibility). I foresee a lot of minor problems initially (and was not surprised by the 6 month delay). I agree that right out of the box, predication and speculation will be pretty sweet just by re-compiling. But, I can almost guarantee that things like optimizing the new instruction set will be messy. For a lot of applications, bugs in this area could result in observable problems. For a chess program, it may just result in inferior moves being chosen and may be hard to detect and debug. But, I have been wrong before, so we shall see. BTW, are you planning on re-building Siberian Chess for IA-64? KarinsDad :)
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