How is Core2Duo speeding up compile-time?
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With something like IncrediBuild (http://www.xoreax.com) you'll probably get a pretty decent speedup with your C++ compiles (assuming you have enough memory to support a couple of compiler processes on your machine). It mostly uses network distribution to speed up compiles but can also take advantage of multiple cores. With plain Visual Studio 2005 you'll also be getting some improvement. VS2005 can build two different configurations in parallel on a dual-core machine. The downside is that each project compiles only on one CPU, so if you have one big project that wouldn't be getting any speedup. - Dan
Yeah, I'd second that Incredibuild recommendation - it really makes a big difference here when building big projects :)
-- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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My C++-project has >500 cpp-Files and takes >20min. to build. Configuration: Visual-C++ (VS2005) on a Pentium 4 with 3GHZ and 2GB RAM. I wonder, whether a new machine could significantly cut down my compile-times. Core2Duo is advertised to perform by dimensions better than all previous processors. Can anyone give an estimation, which gain I could expect from changing to a up-to-date machine (especially with respect to C++-compiling?) Thanks CHristof
The latest Microsoft compile is still single-threaded (as far as I know), and I'm afraid that only multi-threaded applications will benefit from a Core2Duo processor. Our company uses a commercial product called 'Xoreax Incredibuild' that runs distributed compilations on our LAN. The speedup depends on the number of processors working on the compilation, in our case the compilation is about 6 times faster using 7 agents (processors). The downside to this is that it's quite expensive, about 400$ per agent (the last time I checked)
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My C++-project has >500 cpp-Files and takes >20min. to build. Configuration: Visual-C++ (VS2005) on a Pentium 4 with 3GHZ and 2GB RAM. I wonder, whether a new machine could significantly cut down my compile-times. Core2Duo is advertised to perform by dimensions better than all previous processors. Can anyone give an estimation, which gain I could expect from changing to a up-to-date machine (especially with respect to C++-compiling?) Thanks CHristof
While I agree that fixing the underlying problem is the better plan, I thought I'd answer the question literally, too. I haven't gotten to try new compile times on one, but a similarly linear process that ran 2 hours(EXACTLY) on a 2.8G Pentium-D or Xeon (2 processors) machine ran in just under 1 hour on a 2.8G Core2Duo for me. Not really a good benchmark, different OSes, installed software and Virus Scan, and other hardware... But, I was impressed.:cool:
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My C++-project has >500 cpp-Files and takes >20min. to build. Configuration: Visual-C++ (VS2005) on a Pentium 4 with 3GHZ and 2GB RAM. I wonder, whether a new machine could significantly cut down my compile-times. Core2Duo is advertised to perform by dimensions better than all previous processors. Can anyone give an estimation, which gain I could expect from changing to a up-to-date machine (especially with respect to C++-compiling?) Thanks CHristof
a small tip increase the priority of your process to real time (it will work if your cpu/ram are not running 100%) i dont know much about c++ but you should use dlls where ever you can so that you dont need to compile them every time remember the saying (devide and rule) :):)
It is Good to be Important but! it is more Important to be Good
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My C++-project has >500 cpp-Files and takes >20min. to build. Configuration: Visual-C++ (VS2005) on a Pentium 4 with 3GHZ and 2GB RAM. I wonder, whether a new machine could significantly cut down my compile-times. Core2Duo is advertised to perform by dimensions better than all previous processors. Can anyone give an estimation, which gain I could expect from changing to a up-to-date machine (especially with respect to C++-compiling?) Thanks CHristof
Our solution consists of 41 projects (both vb.net and C#). Our configuration is VS2005 on a Dell Precision 390's with 4GB RAM, 2x SCSI (10k RPM) HDD's using RAID 0 and a Core2Duo Extreme 2.93GHz CPU. Compilation time is minimal and VS2005 runs FAST! Beforehand, we ran on HP Pentium 4 2.8GHz HT with 2GB RAM and 1x SATA 7200 RPM HHD's and everything was SLOW as a snail on ritalin! We lost hours a day to compilation time with VS2005. The new hardware has made coding a pleasure again, with zero hassles and the solution takes about 20 seconds to compile = much happier developers :) Even with the high cost of the new hardware, we calculated that we would break even within 2 to 3 months due to the increase in productivity and not losing as much time to compilation.