"Mega Drivers" Being Proposed For A Faster Mesa

[erendorn]

Error in same order of magnitude as the results? We call it insignificant (or nothing).

I also can't understand those trailing digits (these after 0.7 in -0.798709%) if we have an error of 0.3%. they absolutely don't have any value or meaning.

The results look significant to me at alpha=5% (non null hypothesis).

[Calinou]

the performace gain from this seems to be very small, but yah every bit helps.
the time for CD distros is over go with a dvd, no one uses it anyway they use a usb :P

Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Mint can't be put a CD already since a few months ago.

[Sergey Shambir]

6% performance improvement across the board? Sounds like the next step. What does this mean for out-of-tree Direct3D and CUDA state trackers?

Seems that it's only when hardware acceleration disabled (see INTEL_NO_HW=1 in article). If so, perfomance grow should be lesser in normal situation, i.e when acceleration enabled.

[curaga]

I see two downsides:
- you can't remove or update drivers separately
- the dropped DRI drivers that one could previously build from an earlier release, would this break them?

[droste]

Error in same order of magnitude as the results? We call it insignificant (or nothing).

I also can't understand those trailing digits (these after 0.7 in -0.798709%) if we have an error of 0.3%. they absolutely don't have any value or meaning.

Those numbers aren't the interesting ones!
These are:

On a megadrivers+LTO compared to non-megadrivers, non-LTO, the difference was -6.35008% +/- 0.675067% (n=10).

[libv]

Amazing. How one still can go in against common software development sense even after having worked in the software industry for 7 years.

[devius]

And I thought this was about a 16-bit console from the 90's.... what a disappointing article

[Luke]

Network install require landline bandwidth

USB? Who installs using those? TFTP/PXE/NFS is where it's at!

Those of us who do not have a reliable high-bandwidth connection cannot install over the network and
must have all packages or the filesystem image locally prior to beginning an installation. I have never
had landline internet at home, thus never done and install over a network.

[locovaca]

Those of us who do not have a reliable high-bandwidth connection cannot install over the network and
must have all packages or the filesystem image locally prior to beginning an installation. I have never
had landline internet at home, thus never done and install over a network.

This has nothing to do with having a high bandwidth internet connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment

[Luke]

I use local installers and local OS's only

This has nothing to do with having a high bandwidth internet connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot...on_Environment

To install a new system from scratch (not a copy of my existing systems), I must first go to a library
to fetch a full CD/DVD installer image from an uncapped/unthrottled internet connection. Then that is taken
home and used for installation. The exact same OS on the netbook, updated on the road, later
fetches packages which are harvested from /var/cache/apt/archives and used again at home on
the video editing desktop machine.

For actually running a system, I require all binaries locally on my own machines not only for
bandwidth but also security reasons.

Thus, installing from a full installer image on a flash drive or a DVD is by no means obsolete,
different users have different needs. With open source and many distros, people can choose for
themselves.