optimisation and AMD K7

[Tim Prince]

>Which version of gcc or egcs and which
>options should I use to get the best perf or the smaller exe. 

Your mileage surely will vary.  gcc-2.95.2 does well on many examples; gcc-2.96
improves significantly in certain situations, and loses in others.

On x86 architectures, the option -Os, which is intended to produce smallest
code, often produces faster code as well, possibly in combination with
-funroll-loops or -funroll-all-loops. 

I believe 2.96 has seen some work for k7.  With 2.96, the combination
-march=pentiumpro -ffast-math activates conditional moves and the like, as well
as a number of bugs.  The latest version of 2.96 has corrected some of the code
alignment problems of 2.95.2.
Tim Prince
tprince@computer.org