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<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="math_toolkit.perf.perf_over"></a><a class="link" href="perf_over.html" title="Performance Overview"> Performance Overview</a>
</h3></div></div></div>
<p>
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<p>
By and large the performance of this library should be acceptable for most
needs. However, you should note that the library's primary emphasis is
on accuracy and numerical stability, and <span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span> speed.
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
In terms of the algorithms used, this library aims to use the same "best
of breed" algorithms as many other libraries: the principle difference
is that this library is implemented in C++ - taking advantage of all the
abstraction mechanisms that C++ offers - where as most traditional numeric
libraries are implemented in C or FORTRAN. Traditionally languages such
as C or FORTRAN are perceived as easier to optimise than more complex languages
like C++, so in a sense this library provides a good test of current compiler
technology, and the "abstraction penalty" - if any - of C++ compared
to other languages.
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<p>
The two most important things you can do to ensure the best performance
from this library are:
</p>
<p>
</p>
<div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1">
<li>
Turn on your compilers optimisations: the difference between "release"
and "debug" builds can easily be a <a class="link" href="getting_best.html" title="Getting the Best Performance from this Library">factor
of 20</a>.
</li>
<li>
Pick your compiler carefully: <a class="link" href="comp_compilers.html" title="Comparing Compilers">performance
differences of up to 8 fold</a> have been found between some windows
compilers for example.
</li>
</ol></div>
<p>
</p>
<p>
The <a class="link" href="../perf.html" title="Performance">performance section</a> contains
more information on the performance of this library, what you can do to
fine tune it, and how this library compares to some other open source alternatives.
</p>
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<td align="right"><div class="copyright-footer">Copyright © 2006 , 2007, 2008, 2009 John Maddock, Paul A. Bristow,
Hubert Holin, Xiaogang Zhang, Bruno Lalande, Johan Råde, Gautam Sewani
and Thijs van den Berg<p>
Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)
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