[PD] switch~ & cputime climbing

[Phil Stone]

Derek Holzer wrote:
> This could almost be the denormal problem again. Is it an Intel 
> processor on the MacBook? Intels are notorious for poor handling of 
> denormal numbers, which occur when the mantissa (decimal places) of a 
> number representing an audio signal becomes too long (such as happens 
> with reverb tails, etc). Check the archives for more than just a bit 
> of discussion on this, with some solutions (?) and certainly some 
> workarounds.
Yes, it's an Intel Core Duo in the MacBook.  When I first noticed this 
pattern, I thought it sounded like denormalling, but I dismissed the 
idea, thinking that Core Duo's couldn't *still* have this problem.

How wrong I was.   Your reply prompted me to do a little web searching.  
See:  http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/subnormal/  and notice how abysmally the 
Core Duo performs in denormal situations -- worse than previous Intels, 
if this benchmark is to be believed.

Thank you (and others who mentioned this) for pushing me past the "can't 
be" stage.  I'll look into workarounds.


Phil