On 14-3-2011 7:26, Cecil Westerhof wrote:
2011/3/14 Marco<net...@lavabit.com>
On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof<cldwester...@gmail.com> wrote:
When installing minimals you have MKII, XeTeX and MKIV. I understand that
you should normally use MKIV, but when are the other two used?
MKII can be used either with pdftex or xetex (as you wish, compare
advantages/disadvantages). MKIV can only be used with luatex.
You have to differ between ConTeXt »versions« (mkii, mkiv) and TeX backends
(pdftex, xetex, luatex).
And where do I find the advantages/disadvantages? Or can I just always use
MKIV?
As already mentioned speed depends on the kind of document. In general
context runs slower with xetex and luatex if only because these are
unicode engines while pdftex is 8 bit.
Occasionally i do speed tests and it also depends on the operating
system, file caching etc. For luatex the size of the cpu cache also
matters. Although pdftex/mkiv is always faster unless on eused metapoist
in which case mkiv is a clear winner (the metafun manual runs in tens of
seconds in mkiv but takes many minutes in mkii. Comparing xetex/mkii
and luatex/mkiv is difficult as xetex also pipes its output to a dvi
backend. On some tests mkiv is faster, on some others mkii but I must
admit that i only tested simple document.
On a raw simple document, pdftex can be twice as fast as xetex or
luatex. The more lua driven features are used, the slower mkiv becomes
but in general it does a better job then.
Anyhow .. only luatex/mkiv will evolve so best stick to that.
Hans
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