Re: [boost] [Proposal] Adding CPUID Library in Boost

Subject: Re: [boost] [Proposal] Adding CPUID Library in Boost
From: Tim Blechmann (tim_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-12-12 04:08:32

>> > Which is why what I suggest is just part of Boost.SIMD. It is geared towards
>> > one thing and one thing only: detecting whether a particular SIMD extension
>> > is supported or not, and works across all architectures.
>> > There is also cache detection that we could optionally add, the code is
>> > already there.
>> >
>> > For reference, on other platforms you usually need to ask the operating
>> > system about the hardware capabilities, since detecting the capabilities can
>> > only be done by the kernel.
> Vector programming is one of its applications, true. But hardly the
> only one. Consider also atomic ops and things like AES and RDRAND.
> Cache information can be useful for custom allocators. I'd rather have
> a separate library that is used by Boost.SIMD or at least a highly
> independent public component of Boost.SIMD (but then again, why is it
> not a first class library?).

+1

run-time dispatching for cmpxchg8b on ia32 or cmpxchg16b on x86_64 all
require access to CPUID and have absolutely nothing to do with SIMD
programming. so i'd very much appreciate a separate lightweight library ...

cheers, tim