In message <200006261740.NAA02240@Twig.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, der Mouse write
s:
>The problem: absolutely *abysmal* performance at a certain task.

While we're at it:  I just compiled lame-3.70 on my alpha.  I also have a
laptop running i386.

I'm using "lame -v -b 128".  (Without the "-b 128", it's even worse)

On my laptop, I get about 1:2 performance, e.g. 15 minutes to compress an
8-minute track.

On my alpha, I get about 1:4.5 performance, e.g., 28 minutes to compress an
8-minute track.

The laptop:  PII-233, probably a "mobile" pentium II of some sort.  96MB of
SDRAM.

The alpha:  PC164-500, 256MB of memory, using all 8 SIMM slots.

The alpha otherwise runs probably 2x the speed of the laptop.

Both are using IDE disks.  The alpha was compiled with -O4, various options
suggested by the Makefile, -DFLOAT=double (stolen from our patches directory
in pkgsrc for lame 3.50), and -Mcpu=21164a -Wa,-m21164a or whatever that was
to tell it it's on a 21164a.

The laptop is 1.4ZD, the alpha is 1.4ZD.

This can't be right.  :)

-s