Re: Math co-processor? What a heck?!

[sbehrens@arrowweb.com (S�nke Behrens)]

pdunkel@cc.hut.fi (Paul Dunkel) wrote:

>I have this math-processor in on of my GS' slots. Does some programs
>really use it?

Depends on what software you installed. If this is the original FPE
and you have the SANE patch installed (more on that later), then all
programs that do floating-point through SANE will be accelerated.
The original FPE has a few bugs in hardware, though, and the SANE
patch is also buggy.
If you have the NC (NumberCruncher) card, then the hardware bugs are
gone, the SANE patch is the same as for the FPE, though.
If it's some other card, I don't think it will accelerate much.

Regarding bugs: I don't know _which_ bugs the FPE had exactly, I just
know there were some (one was suceptibility to heat). The problem of a
buggy SANE patch will go away shortly, one guy whom I won't name yet
(he can do that himself) has rewritten the patch to be free of all
known bugs.

There are also a few programs that access the FPCP (Floating Point
Co-Processor) directly, must notably GSymbolix (Eureka!, now), which
is an _excellent_ maths package.

Yours
Soenke
-- 
ORCA/C buglist and other stuff at: http://www.arrowweb.com/sbehrens/