> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don Cox [mailto:doncox@enterprise.net]
>
> I find that on a 68040, lack of speed is only a problem with very long
> text files. I sometimes uses PGS to print out books from
> Gutenberg, and
> they can be slow to lay out.
>
> But really there are much more urgent things, such as Tables,
> and a Wire
> Frame display for editing drawings, and finishing the PDF export.
>
> PGS is fast enough for normal use, IMO.
>
> Regards
> --
> Don Cox
> doncox@enterprise.net

Agreed, for normal use it is fast enough (I shouldn't really complain, with
a 64MHz '060 and CyberVisionPPC). Since PageStream is written in C, I was
just wandering if some parts of the application would speed up significantly
when compiling a PPC binary instead of a 68k binary. I understand that all
the OS calls (and I know that for 'serious' applications that's a major
part, opposite to games) will not get any major speed advantage, but there
must be quite some code inside the PGS executable and the filters and so
forth that should gain some speed.

My view was: If setting a compile flag to PPC is all it takes to deliver a
PPC version as well, why not? Or is there more to it than setting a few
compiler flags?

Wouter Lamee

In a message of 20-Jul-00 Lamee Wouter wrote:

> My view was: If setting a compile flag to PPC is all it takes to deliver a
> PPC version as well, why not? Or is there more to it than setting a few
> compiler flags?

I have been told it is not that easy. I have been told, that if you compile
the full source for PPC, then you most probably will not gain any speed
improvements -- quite the contrary -- because the context switching between
the two processors would actually mean a speed decrease. So if you are
going to support PPC you will have to evaluate your source and then compile
certain modules for PPC, e.g. the decoding of JPEG images would be a good
candidate for such, because inbetween the image being read from disk and
being displayed on screen it is nothing but number cruching and for that
purpose the PPC is ideal. The reading of the image and the displaying of
the image involves 68k OS functions and are therefore not suited for PPC,
so in pseudo C:

int HandleImage(file)
{
data=ReadImage(file);
unpackeddata=UnpackImage(data);
DisplayImage(unpackeddata);
}

only the middle function, UnpackImage(), would be suited for PPC.

This is naturally as long as the OS is 68k. If we some day sees a PPC
native OS you wouldn't have to consider these aspects.

There is no doubt many smaller parts of PageStream that would be suited for
PPC compiling, but in my personal opinion Deron should rather use his time
improving other parts of the program -- I for one would prefer the problems
with PostScript and TTF files to be fixed and PostScript and Imposition
printing to be fixed as well rather than have certain parts made for PPC.

Well, I really don't know much about this and what I have said in this
message is my way of telling what I have heard, so it might no be the
complete truth )

Uffe Holst