Re: Speed of floating point double vs single precision

From: Beamguy (nobody_at_home.com)
Date: 11/08/04 

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 17:28:02 -0500

I answered my own question. It is slightly faster to have everything in double precision,
since the floating processor and all the library functions are double precision. Single
precision numbers must be converted to double before being used.

"Beamguy" <nobody@home.com> wrote in message news:...
>I am writing a numerical program and am pondering which precision to use for floating
> point numbers. A bunch of years back there was a class of computers where it became
> faster to do floating point arithmetic in double precision, since the hardware floating
> point was double precision. I am not sure about PC's. Are hardware floating point
> units on PC's double or single precision these days, and based on this which is faster
> to use?
>
> Thanks.
>

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