Optimizing software for the Power Macintosh G5
Apple's Developer program has published a document offering some tips for programmers looking to optimize their applications for the Power Macintosh G5 and the PowerPC 970 processor. It reads:
"Apple's Power Mac G5 computer has significantly increased speed, capacity and performance capabilities, giving you new opportunities to create powerful, innovative software. But to take full advantage of the G5 platform, you'll need to understand how the G5 differs from previous processors, which new tools Apple provides to help you analyze your software for the G5, and how to optimize your application. Optimization is not just for high-end, math and science applications-every application can benefit significantly from modifications that range from very easy to very complex. You will have to decide for yourself how much to optimize; this article can help by guiding you through the decision-making process, and by explaining what's involved in each set of options."
"If you are creating new applications, optimizing can help you get the most out of the G5 from the start; for existing applications, you can learn how to identify the parts of your application that can be tuned to run optimally on the G5. If you have already optimized your current products for the G4 processor, you'll need to make a similar effort to optimize them for the Power Mac G5."
Comments on Apple's tips? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
Resources
From the benchmarks I've seen, it seems the improvements over the G4's are roughly proportional to clock speeds. This is depressing since the G5 has a bus speed that is about 5-6 times as fast as the best G4's -- I was expecting a much bigger leap with the dramatic change in architecture.
The good news for me personally is that until the developers tune their apps to the G5, they are not going to make my iBook look too sick. However, when they do, I'll just have to have one (and hopefully I'll have some money then!)