John, one question about your results: How do they measure up with the results coming from #tinyBenchmarks? I don't think there are very many bytecodes involved either so (in theory) the results obtained should be exactly in line.
Cheers,
- Andreas
Hi, I'm not sure what you are asking for here?
I see someone talked about the branch prediction logic in powerpc versus intel. I'll note that apple once had a tool to instrument a program, then run and collect branch statistics. This data was then reapplied to the binary to set tag bits on branches because you can indicate which way a branch should usually go as part of the instruction. (a hint)
For the 604e I found this made a measurable improvement for the squeak VM. However for the G3 the gain was far less because the branch predictor logic was so much better. I've not gone back to visit that, besides it's another time consuming step in the build process. However I note some discussion of this issue for the G5, so we'll see.
-- ======================================================================== === John M. McIntosh johnmci@smalltalkconsulting.com 1-800-477-2659 Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com ======================================================================== ===