>> Q: What was the reasoning behind using doubles instead of floats? Is
>> it the case that this level of precision (or range) is needed?
Is there any type of calculation in chemistry where it would ever make
sense to have that much range & precision?

> I did not report it yet, as I was wondering if the increased precision
> had effects on the performance... (which it should...)
At one level, some of the biggest challenges in improving performance are
bus bandwidth and cache hit ration. So moving around 8 bytes at a time is
more expensive than moving around 4 bytes at a time. Because it uses more
bus bandwidth and reduces cache effectiveness.

> but haven't had
> time to do  some real test... though the effect seems rather marginal...
I am sure that the direct effects are marginal.
But, in my opinion, Unless there is a real application-level need to do
it, using 8 bytes when 4 will do is wasteful.

We could use 8 byte integers for everything too, but we don't. In most
cases there is no need for it.

> but this may  also be caused by the removal of a number of method
> calls... which was one of  the advantageous effects of the move to CDK
> ...
I assume that moving to CDK is a good thing.

Miguel






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