GCDC'08: optimizing DirectX code for multi-core platforms

Right after his 50 minutes session at GCDC'08 talking about DirectX optimizations for multi-core platforms we had the chance to interview Intel fellow Leigh Davies. Our questions we asked him were quite obvious: 1. What was your session all about?
2. How can developers optimize their software?
3. How does Intel help developers to optimize their code?
4. Which tools does Intel provide for optimization purposes?

His answers where very illustrative: current games still use the CPUs quite heavily and thus developers have to exploit multi-core systems best. The answer on the second question sounds like this: use the single-threaded APIs as efficient as possible. This means for instance that you have to use different cores for special tasks like rendering. This approach uses multiple processor cores for various jobs.

The third answer was a general one: Intel helps a lot via their web resources where you can find constantly new things. And of course he mentioned all the blogs and video footage covering different topics and events. But Intel also helps directly supporting developers with engineers who look at their code to find bottlenecks and other barriers.

Last question had some useful answers: tools like Intel Threading Building Blocks and Intel Compilers are mostly for free and help developers to optimize their software for different Intel platforms.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• gcdc
• directx
• tips
• optimization
• developers
• intel
• multicore