In article <368### [at] aolcom> , Mike <Ama### [at] aolcom>  wrote:
>I take that to mean that there's not much to be gained from getting the
>service pack, unless I'm experiencing problems with the program.  That's
>a relief, since I really didn't feel like downloading it anyway. :)

You got the point, only if you have had one of the problems - 90 MB is a lot (well, I
don't care about such things, the PC running VC are not my own ones, nor am a
responsible for them :-)

>I'm pretty happy with VC++ though, and I don't have any reason to get
>another compiler.  Programming is merely a hobby for me.

Yes, and as long as you don't want (very good) C++ code or need cross plattform
support it is reasonable choice for Windows.

>I find the
>code to be fast now that I turned debugging off for the final compile. I
>did a quick test on a scene with some media, height fields, fog, and a
>few other things.
>
>VC++ - 2 minutes 29 seconds
>Watcom - 2 minutes 30 seconds.
>
>I'm not pretending to know enough to claim if one is better than the
>other, but I do see this as an indication that the compiler does a
>satisfactory job of making the executable.

Yes, code speed, stability and portablity are hard to compare at all, there is no
compiler for every job (yet?) - while sometimes a difference is hard to measure at
all, sometimes it may be well over 50% (or even more) just depending on the compiler.
 I usually use CodeWarrior (because I program mostly for the Macintosh) and I never
compiled POV-Ray for Windows yet, but I have by now done some (cross plattform)
"algorithm only" programs and sometimes found big differences, sometimes none at all.
The point is that if the compiled version is faster for whatever you use it for it is
fine, but don't be surprised if you get other results with other scenes.  --  Good
luck playing with the POV-Ray source code!


    Thorsten

Post a reply to this message