Terrible FPU performance

[Mihai Badoiu]

I'm using intel xeon harpertown (E5450) and Python 2.6.4.

In the cython code, when I use fpclassify, in the slow case I get 3
(FP_SUBNORMAL)
In the pure-C code, when I use fpclassify, in the case that's supposed to be
slow but it's not, I get a 2 (FP_ZERO)

Somehow, the FPU's have different results for exactly the same asm code.

--mihai

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:06 PM, David Cournapeau <cournape at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:14 AM, Dan Goodman <dg.gmane at thesamovar.net>
> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On 26/04/2011 15:40, Mihai Badoiu wrote:
> >> I have terrible performance for multiplication when one number gets very
> >> close to zero.  I'm using cython by writing the following code:
> >
> > This might be an issue with denormal numbers:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denormal_number
> >
> > I don't know much about them though, so I can't advise any further than
> > that...
>
> This indeed sounds like it. Mihai, which CPU are you using ? Pentium4
> are especially known to have terrible (read order of magnitude slower)
> performance with denormal numbers.
>
> There is unfortunately no simple way to know whether a float is
> denormal or not in python, but since you are using cython, if you are
> under posix you should be able to use fpclassify to check this,
>
> From there, if you see a difference between cython/python and C, it
> will be easier to debug.
>
> cheers,
>
> David
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
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