dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) (05/07/91)
Well, I've finally gotten round to doing a benchmark to see how much faster PCTeX is than emTeX. The file I tested is the current revision of my LaTeX book (currently 128 pages). It's a nice test in that it contains a little of just about everything. I compared tex386b (PCTeX) to btex286 (emTeX) since the file is too demanding to run in an ordinary TeX (or even the 128K TeX which is the current PCTeX standard). The benchmarks were run in a DESQview BigDOS window (modified to use 4DOS as the shell) which was the only window open on my 25mHz 386 PC. I was running the Hyperdisk DiskCache program with staged writes on. Care was taken that both programs were tested under identical operating conditions. The results: tex386b: 4:13.21 btex286: 14:46.39 A few notes. PCTeX still hasn't fixed the bug with 8-bit input handling. It also is less forgiving of low memory conditions than emTeX is (the benchmarks were run with 3500K of EMS available to each program). Those of you needing a big TeX who have a large-memory 386 (I'd say at least 4M for reasonable performance) would do well to get the PCTeX version if you can live without the eight-bit handling. -dh -- Don Hosek | To retrieve files from ymir via the mailserver, dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu | send a message to mailserv@ymir.claremont.edu Quixote Digital Typography | with a line saying send [DIRECTORY]FILENAME 714-625-0147 | where DIRECTORY is the FTP directory (sans ---------------------------+ "anonymous") and FILENAME is the filename, e.g. "send [tex]00readme.txt". There is a list of files in each directory under the name 00files.txt. Binary files are not available by this technique.
jpl1@Isis.MsState.Edu (Gamma-Ray Burst) (05/07/91)
dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) writes:
Don,
In all fairness to emtex, I think you should include a comparison of
times for smaller size (i.e., more normal) TeX files. I have found
emTeX286 to be faster than pcTeX386 on most of my files (note bene:
neither is a `big' version) What prompted this was a colleague who
came running in saying `Look I knew the pd version of tex was not as
good as the `real' version''. I pointed out to him that there were
significant differences in the needs of large tex files.
thanks
pat
--
John Patrick Lestrade, PhD
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Mississippi State University, MS 39762
Voice: (601) 325-2806 Fax: (601) 325-8898dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) (05/08/91)
In article <jpl1.673630537@Isis.MsState.Edu>, jpl1@Isis.MsState.Edu (Gamma-Ray Burst) writes: > dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) writes: > In all fairness to emtex, I think you should include a comparison of > times for smaller size (i.e., more normal) TeX files. I have found > emTeX286 to be faster than pcTeX386 on most of my files (note bene: > neither is a `big' version) What prompted this was a colleague who > came running in saying `Look I knew the pd version of tex was not as > good as the `real' version''. I pointed out to him that there were > significant differences in the needs of large tex files. Again, I've run a different benchmark, this one a 7-page LaTeX document with no math; the timings came out: tex386b 17.52 tex286 15.05 I don't have any other PCTeX versions to compare, but the time difference is notably slight even comparing the big version to standard emTeX. I'd be surprised if tex286 would be consistently faster than tex386 (it would be interesting to see how the speed of tex386b compares to tex386--if the ratio is anything like that of btex286/tex286, then it should really fly). I will disclaim that the benchmarks I'm running are less than scientifically thorough (some slightly outdated results appear in TUGboat 11#4) but they do give some vague ideas of the relative performances of the different programs. -dh -- Don Hosek | To retrieve files from ymir via the mailserver, dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu | send a message to mailserv@ymir.claremont.edu Quixote Digital Typography | with a line saying send [DIRECTORY]FILENAME 714-625-0147 | where DIRECTORY is the FTP directory (sans ---------------------------+ "anonymous") and FILENAME is the filename, e.g. "send [tex]00readme.txt". There is a list of files in each directory under the name 00files.txt. Binary files are not available by this technique.