Intel compilers anyone?

[J. Todd Slack]

Hi All,

Does anyone have access to the Intel compilers for OS X?

I have run some tests and they compile smaller (much smaller) and the  
code executes over 40% faster.

I just dont have the fund to buy the compiler quite yet. I am hoping  
once I get a website for the TCL/TK Cocoa port that people will donate  
some cash so I can get them...

Anyone?

Thanks!

-Jason



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Kevin Walzer-5]

J. Todd Slack wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Does anyone have access to the Intel compilers for OS X?
>
> I have run some tests and they compile smaller (much smaller) and the  
> code executes over 40% faster.
>
> I just dont have the fund to buy the compiler quite yet. I am hoping  
> once I get a website for the TCL/TK Cocoa port that people will donate  
> some cash so I can get them...
>
> Anyone?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Jason
>

Jason,

I don't have access to the Intel compilers, but just out of curiosity,
what's your purpose in using them instead of the Mac-standard GCC? Are
you planning to maintain a faster binary distribution of Tcl/Tk than
what could be built by someone with the Mac's dev tools installed, or
faster than ActiveState's distro?

--Kevin

--
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[J. Todd Slack]

Hi Kevin,

> I don't have access to the Intel compilers, but just out of  
> curiosity, what's your purpose in using them instead of the Mac-
> standard GCC? Are you planning to maintain a faster binary  
> distribution of Tcl/Tk than what could be built by someone with the  
> Mac's dev tools installed, or faster than ActiveState's distro?

Well, The binaries are way smaller and execute faster. I would provide  
binaries as well as source. with both GCC and Intel.

I am already having fun with this...

If I am going to do this I am going all in. My fiance is very  
supportive.

-Jason


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Kevin Walzer-5]

Jason,

J. Todd Slack wrote:

>
> Well, The binaries are way smaller and execute faster. I would provide
> binaries as well as source. with both GCC and Intel.

Cool. An important follow-up question: does Intel support universal
binaries?

--Kevin

--
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[J. Todd Slack]

Hi Kevin,

>> Well, The binaries are way smaller and execute faster. I would  
>> provide binaries as well as source. with both GCC and Intel.
>
> Cool. An important follow-up question: does Intel support universal  
> binaries?

Yes, they do.

What I am working on is an automated build process that:
1. Compiles UB's with GCC and Intel
2. Compiles an intel native with GCC and Intel
3. Compiled a PPC native with GCC and Intel.
4. PLaces everything in a set location on my web-server
5. generates a new index page and places it there too

I think people will be amazed at the difference the intel compilers  
make. I was surprised too.

I am in this for the long haul and have committed myself to doing it.

Do you have RSS for your blog? I got your e-mail a few days ago, but  
have not had a chance to reply. I am back logged in e-mail.

-Jason




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Kevin Walzer-5]

J. Todd Slack wrote:

>
> What I am working on is an automated build process that:
> 1. Compiles UB's with GCC and Intel
> 2. Compiles an intel native with GCC and Intel
> 3. Compiled a PPC native with GCC and Intel.
> 4. PLaces everything in a set location on my web-server
> 5. generates a new index page and places it there too
>
> I think people will be amazed at the difference the intel compilers
> make. I was surprised too.
>
> I am in this for the long haul and have committed myself to doing it.
>
> Do you have RSS for your blog? I got your e-mail a few days ago, but
> have not had a chance to reply. I am back logged in e-mail.
>
> -Jason

Jason,

Wow. Sounds great.

Here's the RSS for my blog:

http://www.codebykevin.com/blosxom.cgi/index.rss

--Kevin

--
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[J. Todd Slack]

Hi Kevin,

> Wow. Sounds great.

** Yes, like I said i am enjoying myself already.

The compiler are $599, they do offer an educational and NPO discount,  
but I am not sure how much it is.
I own an NPO, so I maybe able to get them cheaper.

I wonder if ActiveState  would donate anything? I am sure a Cocoa  
version would be good for them too.

> Here's the RSS for my blog:

*** Thanks.

-Jason


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Michael A. Cleverly]

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 3:21 PM, J. Todd Slack
<mailinglists@...> wrote:
> The compiler are $599, they do offer an educational and NPO discount,
> but I am not sure how much it is.
> I own an NPO, so I maybe able to get them cheaper.

I can personally spare $100 towards this; perhaps collectively we can
raise the amount you'd need.

> I wonder if ActiveState  would donate anything? I am sure a Cocoa
> version would be good for them too.

Michael

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Jeff Hobbs]

J. Todd Slack wrote:
>> Wow. Sounds great.
>
> ** Yes, like I said i am enjoying myself already.
>
> The compiler are $599, they do offer an educational and NPO discount,  
> but I am not sure how much it is.
> I own an NPO, so I maybe able to get them cheaper.

Academic license is $160.

> I wonder if ActiveState  would donate anything? I am sure a Cocoa  
> version would be good for them too.

I'd like some hard numbers (like a run over the tclbench suite) to see
that this is really worth it.  I'd not heard before that the Intel
compiler was so scorching fast in comparison to gcc on OS X.  Are you
sure that it's comparing against the same set of optimizations?

Also, it appears that Intel supports only 10.4.9+ (and it also says
Intel process-based Mac).  It only creates universal binaries by using
the regular gcc for the ppc side, then gloms it together.

http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/266992.htm

Jeff

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[J. Todd Slack]

Hi Jeff,

> I'd like some hard numbers (like a run over the tclbench suite) to  
> see that this is really worth it.  I'd not heard before that the  
> Intel compiler was so scorching fast in comparison to gcc on OS X.  
> Are you sure that it's comparing against the same set of  
> optimizations?

Well, What would a suitable test suite be for you, I could conjure it  
up and get the numbers.

A wise person said once "trust, but verify"

That person was Ronald Reagan...

-Jason



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Jim Ingham]

I would be surprised if the differences between icc & gcc matter  
significantly for a project like Tcl/Tk.  icc definitely does a better  
job at some kinds of numerically intensive code, and if you're doing  
things like calling lots of small functions which don't do much work  
they play all sorts of games to make that faster.  They can also do  
feedback driven post link optimizations which can be beneficial  
(though with LLVM you can do that too.)  But this sort of thing really  
isn't the performance problem area for Tcl.

Anyway, even if you do use icc for release builds, you should do your  
development with gcc, because you want to make sure that everything  
still works well with icc.  If you assume a commercial compiler, then  
you greatly reduce the number of folks who can help you out...

Jim

On May 8, 2008, at 3:40 PM, Jeff Hobbs wrote:

> J. Todd Slack wrote:
>>> Wow. Sounds great.
>>
>> ** Yes, like I said i am enjoying myself already.
>>
>> The compiler are $599, they do offer an educational and NPO discount,
>> but I am not sure how much it is.
>> I own an NPO, so I maybe able to get them cheaper.
>
> Academic license is $160.
>
>> I wonder if ActiveState  would donate anything? I am sure a Cocoa
>> version would be good for them too.
>
> I'd like some hard numbers (like a run over the tclbench suite) to see
> that this is really worth it.  I'd not heard before that the Intel
> compiler was so scorching fast in comparison to gcc on OS X.  Are you
> sure that it's comparing against the same set of optimizations?
>
> Also, it appears that Intel supports only 10.4.9+ (and it also says
> Intel process-based Mac).  It only creates universal binaries by using
> the regular gcc for the ppc side, then gloms it together.
>
> http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/266992.htm
>
> Jeff
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
> Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save  
> $100.
> Use priority code J8TL2D2.
> http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
> _______________________________________________
> Tcl-mac mailing list
> tcl-mac@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Tim Jones-2]

On May 8, 2008, at 10:41 AM, J. Todd Slack wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Does anyone have access to the Intel compilers for OS X?
>
> I have run some tests and they compile smaller (much smaller) and the
> code executes over 40% faster.
>
> I just dont have the fund to buy the compiler quite yet. I am hoping
> once I get a website for the TCL/TK Cocoa port that people will donate
> some cash so I can get them...

Hi Jason,

I'm sure others will pipe (if they haven't - mail is sluggish here  
today...), but you really should focus on GCC as your build  
platform.  While you may see some improvements in numeric operations,  
most of the stuff that we all do with TCL/TK won't benefit from the  
optimizations.  Plus, when I checked, they only built Intel-binaries  
with the Intel compiler - for the PPC side of a fat binary, they  
called gcc.

Finally, since the 99th plus percentile of rest of us are not using  
the Intel compiler, you could find that we would be unable to assist  
if you're off of gcc and need feedback or input.

Tim


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Daniel A. Steffen]

On 09/05/2008, at 0:40, Jeff Hobbs wrote:

> I'd like some hard numbers (like a run over the tclbench suite) to see
> that this is really worth it.  I'd not heard before that the Intel
> compiler was so scorching fast in comparison to gcc on OS X.  Are you
> sure that it's comparing against the same set of optimizations?

I tried out the intel compilers with tcl back when they were in beta  
and did not see a significant difference to gcc -O3 for a tclbench  
run, things like disabling threading or building static (and with -
mdynamic-no-pic) make a much bigger difference.
I have also recently tried the new llvm-gcc with -O4 and get  
essentially the same result again.
As usual most of the runtime is dominated by time spent in the  
bytecode engine, of which the largest single portion is dispatching  
i.e. the giant switch, c.f. my patch to use computed goto for a way  
to make that a bit faster...

I use various tools to make measuring these things more precise on a  
Mac, in particular my tclCHUDtime extension allows to replace [time]  
by various APIs more precise than getttimeofday, most usefully the  
CHUD APIs that can use processor performance registers and/or CHUD  
sampling a la Shark. I have an update to the publicly available  
version for more recent CHUD that I can clean up if someone is  
interested.
I also have a patch to tclExecute.c that adds instrumentation using  
performance registers or CHUD that can be used to dig into bytecode  
optimization, which I can also make public if there is interest.

Cheers,

Daniel

--
** Daniel A. Steffen                   **
** <mailto:das@...>  **



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Daniel A. Steffen]

On 09/05/2008, at 1:18, Daniel A. Steffen wrote:

> As usual most of the runtime is dominated by time spent in the
> bytecode engine, of which the largest single portion is dispatching
> i.e. the giant switch

should clarify that I mean the largest single hotspot, not that most  
of the time spent in the bytecode engine is in dispatch...

Cheers,

Daniel

--
** Daniel A. Steffen                   **
** <mailto:das@...>  **



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac

[Jeff Hobbs]

J. Todd Slack wrote:
>> I'd like some hard numbers (like a run over the tclbench suite) to see
>> that this is really worth it.  I'd not heard before that the Intel
>> compiler was so scorching fast in comparison to gcc on OS X.  Are you
>> sure that it's comparing against the same set of optimizations?
>
> Well, What would a suitable test suite be for you, I could conjure it up
> and get the numbers.

The test is simple - it is tclbench:
        http://wiki.tcl.tk/tclbench

and a run using it:
        http://wiki.tcl.tk/1611

Remember to make full static (--disable-shared) builds when testing.

Jeff

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100.
Use priority code J8TL2D2.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone
_______________________________________________
Tcl-mac mailing list
tcl-mac@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac