Christopher James Huff wrote:
> In article <3D4### [at] netscapenet>, Roz <Rzl### [at] netscapenet> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Mark Gordon wrote:
>>
>>>Maybe with the Intel compiler, but probably not with gcc.  Speed is no
>>>longer a reason to use the Unix version, and it hasn't been for quite some 
>>>time.
>>
>>I'm not sure what you mean by speed no longer being the reason to use 
>>the Unix version. Do you mean that people using the Unix version don't 
>>mind it being much slower than the Windows version? Well I'd like to see 
>>it come close at least. The faster the render, the better ;)
> 
> 
> You can no longer get faster rendering by using Unix. The compiler used 
> makes more of a difference than the OS, so rendering speed is no longer 
> a reason to use Unix instead of Windows.
> 

So what you're really saying is that the OS doesn't matter anymore for 
rendering speed or if it did, the difference is negligible compared to 
what the different compilers generate. Of course, the compiler flags 
used would possbily have an impact.

I've only custom compiled the sources for 3.1g and MegaPOV 0.7 on Linux. 
Both showed very good rendering speed increases, faster than the 
respective precompiled Windows versions even. But a custom compiled 
version 3.5 using gcc may not end up faster than the Windows version 
anymore. I'm hoping it'll at least get closer ;) The newer version of 
gcc, as Warp suggested, or the Intel compiler may also produce better 
results. I just have to bring myself to download the 58meg file :P

I think what bothered me about Mark's statement is that it sounded like 
there's no point trying to provide an optimized Unix binary because 
it'll never be faster than the Windows version anyway. I realize Mark's 
very busy and it's been really nice to have a Unix binary version to use 
prior to the source code being released. Hopefully compiling from source 
will boost that rendering speed up!

-Roz

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