[gmpi] Re: Topic 1: Audience for and users of plugins

  • From: "Mikael Hillborg" <mikael@xxxxxx>
  • To: <gmpi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 17:19:56 +0100

> > I'd like to limit it to only hardware that has 32 and 64 bit float
> > support, not all things do (eg. palmtops, some games consoles).
> 
> That seems like a severe limitation.
> 

Well, we have to make a decision: (1) create a universal plugin framework
which supports everything and has all the bells and whistles one could imagine. 
This is the classic trap in software design. Result: either nothing at all or 
an 
over-complicated spec that won't be used. Or (2) use common sense and pick
the parts of existing standards that "work" to create an open and useful 
framework,
which works in 99% of the cases. My vote goes to (2). Don't forget that this
is 2003 and even palmtops and game consoles have floating point support. 

I don't think choosing 32 or 64 bit floats only is a severe limitation. It's 
more 
about moving forward. The question is rather to support fixed-point or not. And 
I'd say
no, because there are not too many good and cheap compilers out there, which 
support it. Yes, the GNU C/C++ compiles to 56k, but it's not very efficient. 
Efficient fixed point code is written in assembler. So if this standard is 
going to reach a wide audience, I'd vote against fixed-point and for 32 or 64 
bit floating point support only. 

IMHO the plugin should not care about bit depths. It should deal with floating 
points
only, say 64 bit floating points. If the host maps that onto say 16 bits, then 
it's
the host's task to convert it before it fills the buffers and to convert back 
when
it reads the buffers. It's not feasible for a plugin to provide different code 
snippets
for different bit depths, e.g. one piece of code for 8 bits, one for 16, one 
for 24 and
one for 32. Oh no. 

MH


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