From help-octave-request at che dot utexas dot edu  Tue Jan 31 10:28:05 1995
Subject: Re: Octave SLOW
From: udina at upf dot es
To: doron at mickey dot mpi-hd dot mpg dot de (Eyal Doron)
Cc: help-octave at che dot utexas dot edu
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 17:26:01 +0100 (MET)

:~>
:~>Hi,
:~>  I am trying Octave 1.1.0, and it seems to be much slower than MATLAB.
:~>I get longer running times on an Alpha with Octave than on a 33MHz
:~>486 PC with Matlab. Any comments?
:~>
Well, at that moment I only can compare matlab 4.0 running in a HP-750
versus octave 1.1.0 running in a HP-735. This second machine is faster
than the first because the clock speed. 
I estimate that there is a factor about 2 or 3 (it's a
new machine at home!)



        < M A T L A B (tm) >           Octave, version 1.1.0.                
          Version 4.0                  ...                             
...				                                           
>> tic; inv(rand(50,50));toc	    octave:1> tic; inv(rand(50,50));toc
                              

				                                           
elapsed_time =			     ans = 0.043408                        
				                                           
    0.0500			                                           
				                                           
>> tic; inv(rand(100,100));toc	     octave:2> tic; inv(rand(100,100));toc 
				                                           
elapsed_time =			     ans = 0.15567                         
				                                           
    0.2699			                                           
				                                           
>> tic; inv(rand(150,150));toc	     octave:3> tic; inv(rand(150,150));toc 
				                                           
elapsed_time =			     ans = 0.45370                         
				                                           
    0.7833			                                           

So it looks like Octave is slower in the overhead part but 
not in the numerical part (?) No conclusions from such a primitive and
quick test might be drawn... 

Anyway, matlab is in his 4.0 version, and octave in 1.1!!! And it's
free, matlab is horribly expensive for what you get.


BTW: why octave says 
warning: tic: ignoring extra arguments
warning: toc: ignoring extra arguments

when I call tic?


Frederic Udina
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