[osg-users] faster builds on multiproc systems - Visual Studio 2005& 2008

[Anders Backman]

If you have a few bucks to spare, Incredibuild REALLLY helps if you
have a bunch of computer doing nothing.
Takes 20sec to install, and saves HOURS...

Demo version available.
Just google incredibuild.

One of the most well built pieces of software I have ever come across.
It works as you would like all software should. It actually does what
you expect from it.
You install it on a bunch of computers in you network, in visual
studio you hit incredibuild->build and of it goes, I building on a
virtual 23GHz computer right now... :-)


/Anders

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Colin Dunlop <colin at mve.com> wrote:
> Hi Sherman,
>
>
>   >> This is sort of off-topic but I'm sure interesting to the community
>  none the
>   >> less. I was on the phone with a fellow OSG developer earlier today
>   >> complaining how slow the builds are on Windows and how I have this
>  quad core
>   >> sitting here not being fully utilized by my compiler.
>
>  strangely enough I also discovered this blog post for 2005 two weeks
>  ago after poking around the 2008 documentation and changes. Like
>  Gordon we also get some manifest "mt.exe" odd problems, but in
>  general I can live with them given the 8x speed-up in compilation ;)
>  I don't generally see too many of these problems to make it painful.
>  I guess it depends how often it happens and for how many libraries
>  and I personally never see it unless doing a Solution build from
>  the top where there are loads of project interdependencies happening.
>
>   From my perspective the problems do not produce a bad or incorrect
>  build, just the odd library now and then failing to link which you
>  can manually re-link. Obviously if you miss the error then you'll
>  get a bad build or old library lying around although adding a pre
>  build event to remove the old version before the build can negate this.
>  We have one particular "legacy" library that contains 150 source files
>  and this /MT cuts full rebuild time from 80 to 11 minutes on my dual
>  quad-core.
>
>  Perhaps adding it to the cmake as an optional flag would let people
>  try it for themselves and decide on whether it works for them.
>
>  Gordon:
>
>  > Now back in the good old days on good SGI 32 processor monster
>   > parallel build work like a charm and screamed along ......
>
>  Yup it's only taken 10 years for me to have 1/4 of the build power
>  on Windows of that humming beast of an SGI towel dryer in the
>  basement ;)
>
>  Colin.
>
>
>
>  sherman wilcox wrote:
>  > Gordon, the issues you encountered - were they obvious issues as in
>  > linker errors or were they more subtle like random crashes and the
>  > like?
>  >
>  > On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 4:04 PM, Gordon Tomlinson
>  > <gordon.tomlinson at sensor.com> wrote:
>  >> Hi
>  >>
>  >> We avoid using this feature at work on our projects as we have found the VS
>  >> linker and compiler do not always see eye to eye when using parallel builds
>  >> and also find a lot of manifest issue, but that's our experience
>  >>
>  >> Now back in the good old days on good SGI 32 processor monster parallel
>  >> build work like a charm and screamed along ......
>  >>
>  >> Regards
>  >> Gordon
>  >>
>  >>
>  >> -----Original Message-----
>  >> From: osg-users-bounces at lists.openscenegraph.org
>  >> [mailto:osg-users-bounces at lists.openscenegraph.org] On Behalf Of sherman
>  >> wilcox
>  >> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 4:34 PM
>  >> To: OpenSceneGraph Users
>  >> Subject: [osg-users] faster builds on multiproc systems - Visual Studio
>  >> 2005& 2008
>  >>
>  >> This is sort of off-topic but I'm sure interesting to the community none the
>  >> less. I was on the phone with a fellow OSG developer earlier today
>  >> complaining how slow the builds are on Windows and how I have this quad core
>  >> sitting here not being fully utilized by my compiler.
>  >> He touted how his Mac could perform parallel builds and how much faster it
>  >> was. So off I went to see if there's a way to do this with my compiler,
>  >> Visual Studio 2005. Lo and behold I found an undocumented way to enable
>  >> multi-processor builds using VS 2005. I couldn't believe it. It was like
>  >> someone gave me a gift.
>  >>
>  >>
>  >> http://blog.280z28.org/archives/2007/10/17/
>  >>
>  >> http://lahsiv.net/blog/?p=40
>  >>
>  >> So, could some of you guys try this as well and let me know how you get on?
>  >> _______________________________________________
>  >> osg-users mailing list
>  >> osg-users at lists.openscenegraph.org
>  >> http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
>  >>
>  >>
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-- 


________________________________________________________________
 Anders Backman Email: andersb at cs.umu.se
 HPC2N/VRlab Phone: +46 (0)90-786 9936
 Umea university Cellular: +46 (0)70-392 64 67
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