Comments on: Reason in Beta for Intel, New ReWire, Xcode “Slower” for PowerPC? http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/03/15/reason-in-beta-for-intel-new-rewire-xcode-slower-for-powerpc/ The latest gear, software, and techniques for electronic music production and performance Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:46:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Mikael http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/03/15/reason-in-beta-for-intel-new-rewire-xcode-slower-for-powerpc/comment-page-1/#comment-319387 Mikael Sun, 18 Nov 2007 15:49:03 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=1234#comment-319387 The comment above is preposterous of course. If it's just Reason which runs slowly on PPC Macs and e.g. Logic runs quite fast on the same hardware then how on earth can anyone come up with any other conclusion than that it must be something wrong in Reason? The x86 processors are crappy to mediocre in many ways with lots of bugs but has thanks to a lot more people using it and developing compiler software (e.g. gcc) for it, compilers tend to be more "mature" for that processor. Since other software producers have been successful in writing fast code I believe (hope) that the Propellerheads will find a solution, but I'll NOT hold my breath..... The comment above is preposterous of course.
If it’s just Reason which runs slowly on PPC Macs and e.g. Logic runs quite fast on the same hardware then how on earth can anyone come up with any other conclusion than that it must be something wrong in Reason?

The x86 processors are crappy to mediocre in many ways with lots of bugs but has thanks to a lot more people using it and developing compiler software (e.g. gcc) for it, compilers tend to be more “mature” for that processor.

Since other software producers have been successful in writing fast code I believe (hope) that the Propellerheads will find a solution, but I’ll NOT hold my breath…..

]]> By: kokorozashi http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/03/15/reason-in-beta-for-intel-new-rewire-xcode-slower-for-powerpc/comment-page-1/#comment-2637 kokorozashi Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:32:54 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=1234#comment-2637 This issue is probably not unique to Reason. What seems likely to be happening is that Intel processors run poorly generated code better than PowerPC processors do. Intel processors are not really CISC. They front as CISC, but they essentially recompile the CISC instructions into RISC-like instructions before executing them. This process of recompilation is done with a considerable investment of big-brained R&D by Intel. This means that bad CISC code gets optimized into better (if not good) RISC code. I'm oversimplifying, of course, but consider that if your processor is actually RISC, like PowerPC is, you have no opportunity to recompile in this way. You need code that was generated reasonably well in the first place to go fast. CodeWarrior generates fast code. Meanwhile, gcc is notorious for generating slow code. Put all these factors together and you get: CodeWarrior generates fast code on PowerPC but no code at all on Intel. gcc generates slow code for both processors, but the nature of Intel processors makes up for a lot of that. This is part of the speed boost Apple has been crowing about. Just imagine the potential on Intel processors if gcc didn't suck! This issue is probably not unique to Reason. What seems likely to be happening is that Intel processors run poorly generated code better than PowerPC processors do. Intel processors are not really CISC. They front as CISC, but they essentially recompile the CISC instructions into RISC-like instructions before executing them. This process of recompilation is done with a considerable investment of big-brained R&D by Intel. This means that bad CISC code gets optimized into better (if not good) RISC code. I’m oversimplifying, of course, but consider that if your processor is actually RISC, like PowerPC is, you have no opportunity to recompile in this way. You need code that was generated reasonably well in the first place to go fast. CodeWarrior generates fast code. Meanwhile, gcc is notorious for generating slow code. Put all these factors together and you get: CodeWarrior generates fast code on PowerPC but no code at all on Intel. gcc generates slow code for both processors, but the nature of Intel processors makes up for a lot of that. This is part of the speed boost Apple has been crowing about. Just imagine the potential on Intel processors if gcc didn’t suck!

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