[linux-audio-dev] XAP: a polemic

[Steve Harris]

On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 09:20:26 +0000, Mike Rawes wrote:
> The only sound argument I have found for using integer fixed point over
> float can be summed up in two words:
> 
> Denormal Number
> 
> Although deft coding can alleviate it somewhat, I can only hope that
> with the Itanium, Opteron or whatever, this is no longer a problem!

You can tell the SSE unit(s) to remove them automatically and SSE is the
only (or main?) way of doing arithmetic on the Itanium IIRC. I haven't
read up on the Opteron.

But even in 387 denormal numbers are easy to stamp on if you find them.

- Steve