Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!phigate!prle!prles2!cstw01!meulenbr
From: meulenbr@cstw01.prl.philips.nl (Frans Meulenbroeks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Comment on PD/Shareware C compiler
Message-ID: <474@prles2.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 89 12:05:35 GMT
References: <1048@orbit.UUCP	 <1471@atari.UUCP>
Sender: nobody@prles2.UUCP
Reply-To: meulenbr@cstw01.prl.philips.nl (Frans Meulenbroeks)
Organization: Centre for Software Technology, Philips Eindhoven
Lines: 52

[I've trimmed down the original article quite heavily. FM	
In article <1471@atari.UUCP	 apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes:
	I got GCC version 1.23 for the ST from Simon Poole (indirectly), and I
	found that its 68000 code generation is TERRIBLE.  It is beaten by ALL
	the other Atari C compilers I could find (Dhrystone 2.1), by a factor of
	two or more in some cases.  This includes using -O, but no other

Why don't you mention the DRI C compiler??
Not a speed monster either.
	
	These are the ST timings I got for Dhrystone 2.1.  (I can't publish any
	non-ST times.) All are on the same ST, with the same things going on in
	background (mainly checking for special "hot" keys; the background stuff
	is why the times are slower than yours). 
	
	COMPILER OPTIONS	NOREG	 REG
	-------- -------	-----	----
	GCC			 452	 475
	GCC	-O		 540	 540
The gcc 1.34 version is above 1000 if I recall correctly.
Don't have the exact figure handy.
	AZTEC	large		 768	 834
	MWC			 986	1065
	MWC	-O -Vpeep	1014	1091
	ALCYON			 982	1097
	AZTEC	small		1063	1161
	TURBO	-GJMPRZ		1650	1730 (from J.Oklamcakn)
	
	Aztec is version 3.6c; "large" is +P, meaning large code, large data,
	and 32-bit ints; "small" means the defaults: small code (PC-relative)
	small data (address-register relative) and 16-bit ints.  Aztec large and
	GCC have 32-bit ints, all others 16.  Turbo C blows everybody else away

gcc 1.34 has also the option to use 16 bit ints.

	partly because they pass arguments in registers, and probably Julius ran
	it on a bare ST (nothing running in Vblank). 

The gain with turbo C is also achieved by carefully handcrafting the
library routines in assembler.
By the way: which library did you use with gcc? This will influence the
timing greatly.

Some other facts:
gcc is a full ansi compiler and it is free (while being supported better
than most or perhaps all of the other compilers mentioned)

Anyway, apart from the fact that gcc is a memory hog for me it is still
a great compiler. I use it as frequent as Turbo C
Frans Meulenbroeks        (meulenbr@cst.prl.philips.nl)
	Centre for Software Technology
	( or try: ...!mcvax!phigate!prle!cst!meulenbr)