POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.beta-test : POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available Server Time
29 Mar 2024 08:32:46 EDT (-0400)
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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 19 Apr 2005 13:49:13
Message: <42654499@news.povray.org>
Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> A Mac version is going to be made available within the next few weeks.

To be more precise, the current goal is the first half of May.  However, 
please note that this is just a goal and not a promise yet.

	Thorsten


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From: Francois LE COAT
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 19 Apr 2005 14:38:47
Message: <42655037$2@news.povray.org>
Hi,

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>> A Mac version is going to be made available within the next few weeks.

> 
> To be more precise, the current goal is the first half of May.  However
, 
> please note that this is just a goal and not a promise yet.

Tiger (10.4 OS) will be out, and POV 3.7 will take benefit from it :)
At least with GCC 4.0 (Xcode 2.0) ...

Best regards,


Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
http://eureka.atari.org


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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 19 Apr 2005 16:01:10
Message: <42656386$1@news.povray.org>
Francois LE COAT wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> 
>>> A Mac version is going to be made available within the next few weeks.
>>
>>
>> To be more precise, the current goal is the first half of May.  
>> However, please note that this is just a goal and not a promise yet.
> 
> 
> Tiger (10.4 OS) will be out, and POV 3.7 will take benefit from it :)

Well, but please don't hold your breath about 64-bit addressing ;-)  That is 
only available to non-GUI programs (that is, i.e. database servers and soon 
who really benefit from 64-bit addressing and don't need a GUI), so for 
POV-Ray to use it, the GUI frontend and backend will need to be split apart 
completely and run as two independent programs that communicate with each 
other.  As few users have systems with that much RAM (less than 2% according 
to the collected stats), I cannot possibly justify holding back a beta 
release to develop the means to do this.  On the other hand, there are more 
than ten times as many users with dual-processor Macs, who will benefit from 
the multithreading.  It is more realistic in about a year from now to see 
something like 64-bit support.  Sorry!

	Thorsten


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From: David Wallace
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 22 Apr 2005 11:58:37
Message: <42691f2d@news.povray.org>
Ouch.  I am already running into situations where the 2GB memory addressing 
limit is hampering my designs.  In fact, I ran into it quite some time ago. 
Then again, where are the 64-bit floating-point compilers to take advantage of 
this possibility?

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> Francois LE COAT wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>>
>>>> A Mac version is going to be made available within the next few weeks.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To be more precise, the current goal is the first half of May.  
>>> However, please note that this is just a goal and not a promise yet.
>>
>>
>>
>> Tiger (10.4 OS) will be out, and POV 3.7 will take benefit from it :)
> 
> 
> Well, but please don't hold your breath about 64-bit addressing ;-)  
> That is only available to non-GUI programs (that is, i.e. database 
> servers and soon who really benefit from 64-bit addressing and don't 
> need a GUI), so for POV-Ray to use it, the GUI frontend and backend will 
> need to be split apart completely and run as two independent programs 
> that communicate with each other.  As few users have systems with that 
> much RAM (less than 2% according to the collected stats), I cannot 
> possibly justify holding back a beta release to develop the means to do 
> this.  On the other hand, there are more than ten times as many users 
> with dual-processor Macs, who will benefit from the multithreading.  It 
> is more realistic in about a year from now to see something like 64-bit 
> support.  Sorry!
> 
>     Thorsten


--------------
David Wallace
TenArbor Consulting
"Just In Time Cash"
www.tenarbor.com
1-866-572-CASH


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From: Francois LE COAT
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 22 Apr 2005 14:48:52
Message: <42694714$1@news.povray.org>
Hi,

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> Francois LE COAT wrote:
>> Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>>
>>>> A Mac version is going to be made available within the next few week
s.
>>>
>>> To be more precise, the current goal is the first half of May.  
>>> However, please note that this is just a goal and not a promise yet.
>>
>> Tiger (10.4 OS) will be out, and POV 3.7 will take benefit from it :)
> 
> Well, but please don't hold your breath about 64-bit addressing ;-)  

The 64-bits addressing is not the main feature of GCC 4.0 that I'm
looking forward ... I was speaking of refined optimizations such
as parallelization and vectorization of the PPC code ... It seems
that GCC 4.0 is a great step in the direction of more efficient
code generation.

Do you know more than I know myself ?

Best regards,


Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
http://eureka.atari.org


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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 22 Apr 2005 17:28:18
Message: <42696c72$1@news.povray.org>
Francois LE COAT wrote:
> The 64-bits addressing is not the main feature of GCC 4.0 that I'm
> looking forward ... I was speaking of refined optimizations such
> as parallelization and vectorization of the PPC code ... It seems
> that GCC 4.0 is a great step in the direction of more efficient
> code generation.
> 
> Do you know more than I know myself ?

On the gcc mailing list there have been several notes that code actually is 
slower when compiled with gcc 4.0 than with 3.4 due to some optimizations 
they had to leave behind when getting their new optimizer framework in. 
Supposedly only gcc 4.1 will bring most of those things back.

Besides, I am not exactly very confident with what Apple will ship with Mac 
OS X 10.4 - while they claim it will be gcc 4.0, it cannot actually be 
because that way only released *today* but Apple is already sending out CDs, 
which must have been pressed at least a week ago.  Besides, in the past 
serious bugs in Apple's custom version of gcc have broken popular C++ 
libraries such as boost - the current Apple supplied gcc 3.3.x (not the real 
gcc) has had an infinite loop allocating memory bug in the *compiler* (not 
the generated code) for several months and Apple has not taken any action.

As it stands, I would be more interested to get the 'real' gcc generate AIX 
for PowerPC code as that uses the sane and properly designed PEF/CFM 
execuatable format* rather than the flawed Mach-O format (see for example 
the summary on <http://www.unsanity.org/archives/000044.php> to learn why 
Mach-O applications are so slow)...

	Thorsten


* IBM developed it along with the first Power processor, the superset of the 
instruction set and processor architecture PowerPC processors are based on. 
When Apple moved to PowerPC, the first Mac OS was developed using IBM 
compilers running on Power-based AIX workstations.


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From: Francois LE COAT
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 23 Apr 2005 03:01:25
Message: <4269f2c5@news.povray.org>
Hi,

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> As it stands, I would be more interested to get the 'real' gcc generate
 
> AIX for PowerPC code as that uses the sane and properly designed PEF/CF
M 
> execuatable format* rather than the flawed Mach-O format (see for 
> example the summary on <http://www.unsanity.org/archives/000044.php> to
 
> learn why Mach-O applications are so slow)...
> 
> * IBM developed it along with the first Power processor, the superset o
f 
> the instruction set and processor architecture PowerPC processors are 
> based on. When Apple moved to PowerPC, the first Mac OS was developed 
> using IBM compilers running on Power-based AIX workstations.

Well, as you are speaking about IBM, it seems that XLC (the IBM
compiler) can just be put in place of GCC using Xcode and produce
the best code for PPC. I can't find any information about that ...
Can you ?

Best regards,


Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
http://eureka.atari.org


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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: POV-Ray for Windows version 3.7 beta 1 available
Date: 23 Apr 2005 10:19:31
Message: <426a5973$1@news.povray.org>
Francois LE COAT wrote:
> Well, as you are speaking about IBM, it seems that XLC (the IBM
> compiler) can just be put in place of GCC using Xcode and produce
> the best code for PPC. I can't find any information about that ...

It is not about the compiler, but the executable format.  IBM had to port 
their compiler to the flawed Mach-O, so it does not solve any of the problems.

	Thorsten


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From: Francois LE COAT
Subject: Re: Building POV (was: POV-Ray for Windows ...)
Date: 23 Apr 2005 13:01:32
Message: <426a7f6c@news.povray.org>
Hi,

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> Francois LE COAT wrote:
> 
>> Well, as you are speaking about IBM, it seems that XLC (the IBM
>> compiler) can just be put in place of GCC using Xcode and produce
>> the best code for PPC. I can't find any information about that ...
> 
> It is not about the compiler, but the executable format.  IBM had to 
> port their compiler to the flawed Mach-O, so it does not solve any of 
> the problems.

Well, you're speaking of another platform (AIX eventually).
I personally used XLC for benchmarking, comparing dual-G4 and
dual-G5, with standalone IBM compiler and GCC (Xcode 1.5).

Time (in seconds) for computing 100 images :

dua### [at] 125GHz : GCC (3.3) 104 s. - XLC (6.0) 85 s.
dua### [at] 25GHz  : GCC (3.3) 60  s. - XLC (6.0) 48 s.

and parallel code for image processing (matching mainly integers).

I know that Apple let XLC replace the GCC compiler of Xcode
to produce a better code. Have you heard about that ?

Best regards,


Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
http://eureka.atari.org


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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: Building POV
Date: 23 Apr 2005 13:25:34
Message: <426a850e@news.povray.org>
Francois LE COAT wrote:
> I know that Apple let XLC replace the GCC compiler of Xcode
> to produce a better code. Have you heard about that ?

The IBM compiler is just a command-line program like gcc, and it also takes 
most of the gcc flags for compatibility.  You can hook it into any 
makefile/shell based process easily.

	Thorsten


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