[Openmcl-devel] Floating point performance

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 30 Jan 2010, at 22:19, Paul Onions wrote:

> Okay, but if I don't have a SQRT instruction then how is CMUCL able to
> go so fast?

My uninformed guess would be that emulating the instruction entails a  
trap at some point, while CMUCL probably does not even try to use it  
which is much quicker.

(This is based on distant experience with emulating FP on processors  
which didn't have it, which was deeply slow.)