Re: [boost] [rfc] Boost Graphic/Game Engine

From: Malte Clasen (news_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-19 15:17:13

iain.denniston_at_[hidden] wrote:
> I played around with a SIMD abstraction layer for a while - the goal being 
> to create a thin wrapper around SIMD code to allow simple compile time 
> switches between different archtechtures SIMD implementations (particularly 
> x86 vs. PowerPC vs. Software - due to Xbox 360 and PC). I have the initial 
> code lying around somewhere if anyone is interested in such a library - it 
> certianly may smooth over some of the headaches of creating such maths 
> libraries (although the performance characteristics may not be ideal).

I'm not sure whether this would be the right level for architecture 
specific optimizations. Having a layer that provides access to SIMD 
instructions might smooth out issues between SSE and AltiVec, but 
programming Cell or perhaps CUDA is afaik a bit more involved. I would 
start with larger operations such as FFT, SVD or "multiply a set of 
vectors with matrix A". Given a portable C++-only implementation, you 
could then provide architecture specific implementations of these 
building blocks.

Malte