Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news
From: gil@snsys.com (Gil Jaysmith (Telecommuting))
Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.programming.gnu_compiler
Subject: Re: Memory allocation probs...
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 21:58:34 GMT
Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE)
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Message-ID: <3458fe56.1110110@news.playstation.co.uk>
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The OS needs a chunk of the 2mb - about 32K or 64K in size, can't
remember which. Everything else is probably available.

Pro developers also get to choose which libraries they want, and can
do some sneaky things with them. For example, the movie player uses a
large chunk of BSS but when it isn't playing a movie you can use that
space yourself. Add to that the thought that the pro libraries are
perhaps coded and with a finer granularity than the Yaroze ones.

Many games use code overlays extensively; the devkit makes it easy
enough and the level-based structure of most games makes it intuitive.
Developers also switch on -O3 and all sorts of other hideous
optimisations. I can't tell you whether the optimisation facilities in
the Yaroze GNU compiler are the same as the ones in the pro kit
because I haven't seen which source tree the Yaroze compiler uses, but
we recently switched to v2.7.2.3 with some Cygnus mods, and some
developers have reported speed increases, code shrinkage, all those
good things we like to hear about.

Anyway, pro developers don't get the option of stuff not fitting into
available memory. If it doesn't fit, their managers and producers hit
them until it does. You'd be amazed at your new-found powers of
optimising-for-space if your job depended on it.

(The exception - and this is strictly in my personal opinion as a
gamer - is "Resident Evil", which appears to have trouble fitting even
one scene at a time into the available memory. "Oh look. Another
'door' (TM). And now some 'stairs' (TM)." How on earth did that game
get so popular... ick...!)

- Gil