Xenomorph wrote:Do these optimized builds move stuff from regular PowerPC CPU functions to that AltiVec thing? How are these builds "optimized"?
Where would I see an improvement at?
All builds are optimised by using compiler "flags" while the source code is being compiled. For the G4 builds AltiVec instructions are turned on, but your guess is as good as mine as to where it helps things (it has everything to do with what the compiler does with the code).
What application are you doing this comparison on? On most of the builds, application load times should be shorter. Web page loading times should be quicker (but there have been some reports that the difference in Firefox 3.0.x is a lot smaller compared to the difference with version 2.0.0.x).