Hello, On Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 9:21 PM Nicholas Guriev <nicho...@guriev.su> wrote:
> Package: libopenal1 > Version: 1:1.19.1-2 > > Dear maintainer, > > The library is not usable on the i386 Debian platform which is in fact > i686 with no MMX nor SSE. This is roughly corresponds to Pentium Pro > released in late 1995 (it's even older than me 😌️). > > https://wiki.debian.org/ArchitectureSpecificsMemo#i386-1 > > I can see the package was build with -msse2 -mfpmath=sse compiler > switches. Build scripts in general should not set machine dependent > flags. Please remove them. Actually, you can utilize SSE on i386 > provided that code consults CPUID at runtime. > To be honest, if you're still running on hardware that is older than yourself then I would have to pragmatically ask if you or anyone actually runs openal-soft on that particular hardware platform. Keep in mind for example that you can still run 32-bit on 64-bit x86 hardware, as there is a practical use-case here. I would venture that the usefulness of having a 32-bit build that makes use of SSE2 far outweighs any use-case that sees the use of openal-soft on an actual Pentium Pro. I've had a chat with upstream and here is the response: By default, builds for 32-bit x86 use SSE2 code generation because of > performance issues with the x87 FPU (denormals, square roots, and > more). This can be disabled with the ALSOFT_ENABLE_SSE2_CODEGEN=FALSE > cmake option, which will let it use the compiler default, though it's > not recommended. OpenAL Soft does utilize some SSE on 32-bit x86 based on runtime > detection, but there's also a number of places it doesn't, and making > SSE variants with runtime selection of all the code that may matter is > quite a daunting task with its own downsides (since it's more code, > more maintenance, and more runtime checks or indirect calls, for > hardware that's quite weak to begin with). So disabling SSE2 codegen > will allow it to work for pre-SSE2 CPUs, but worsen 32-bit performance > for SSE2-capable CPUs (x86-64 itself requires SSE2, so the option is > ignored for 64-bit builds). So we either use the SSE extensions, or don't even bother shipping i386 openal-soft. Does anyone actually run or want to run openal-soft on a Pentium Pro? Thoughts? Cheers, Bret
