Re: [Boost-users] Building boost faster: /MP

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Building boost faster: /MP
From: Pete Bartlett (pete_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-07-15 17:16:17

>/MP is most valuable to the preprocessor, especially when using Boost in
your project. When you use boost in >almost every single file, on a very
powerful machine you could still end up waiting 1-3 seconds for each file
>to compile. This is, of course, subject to what part(s) of boost you're
using. In short, I think /MP >introduces extreme performance improvements at
most, and no benefit at all at least.  It might not be perfect, >but it's a
very good first step for Microsoft.

My main build machine is high-spec. I routinely use bjam -j N, but find that
in the code that uses Boost most intensively, CPU is no longer the main
determinant of compile time. Some source files take ~1GB of memory to
compile - so trying to do several such files in parallel causes the meager
3GB or so of memory to be exhausted with all the problems that that entails.
My /next/ build machine is not going to be constrained by the (Windows?)
32bit 4GB memory barrier!