Software: FLAC: Pre-Release 6.0

Speed Increase

The FLAC 6.0 code is compiled with a different compiler than was used for FLAC 5.0 and the result is that the code runs significantly faster. The following graph shows the speed increase when the file "timing.dat" from the User's Guide volume of the FLAC Manual is run on FLAC 5.0 and FLAC 6.0. In this case, the original file is modified to solve for 1000 steps eight times successively (the original only performs one 1000 step solve). The overall speed increase in FLAC 6.0 is seen to be 37%.

A fixed speed increase factor cannot be provided nor should be expected, since the response of FLAC 6.0 will vary with model design. For models that rely heavily on the use of FISH functions, the speed increase may be even greater than that shown above. On the other hand, inclusion of structural elements in a model has been seen to somewhat diminish the speed increase. When Example 6 from the Example Applications volume of the FLAC Manual was used for comparison, the speed increase was 28%.