3 ms·
And subnormal numbers are much more complicated to work with (for some reason). All I know is that DSPs would suddenly start missing their timings if games didn
by Darkphibre 7y ago
And subnormal numbers are much more complicated to work with (for some reason). All I know is that DSPs would suddenly start missing their timings if games didn't clamp outputs, because suuuuper quiet reverb drifted into denormalized ranges and would more than double calculation times.
This anecdote is from the frontlines of the Xbox 360. :)
- aidenn0 7y agoMany embedded CPUs with hw float (including DSPs) do not have hardware support for denormals; they trap to an ISR that implements them in software. This lets them write IEEE compliant on the spec sheet without having to spend transistors on denormals. In addition, many hardware implementations are much slower on denormals; some x87 implementations were 100s of cycles slower on denormals, NaN and Infinity. A colleague of mine was around during the IEEE-754 days and said the hardware people pushed against denormals and the software people won (possibly with a professor stacking the committee with former students of his? I'm not clear on the details).