Category Archives: Floating Point

Float Precision Revisited: Nine Digit Float Portability

Posted on February 7, 2013 by

Last year I pointed out that float variables can be converted to text and then back to the same binary value using printf(“%1.8e”). You can also use %.9g for more compact results. I also supplied a test program that used … Continue reading →

Posted in Floating Point | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments

Top Eight Entertaining Blog Facts for 2012

Posted on January 3, 2013 by

The end of the year is a traditional time for lists and I thought I’d do a post just to summarize the most interesting or surprising things that I discovered while writing this blog during 2012.

Posted in Bugs, Floating Point, Performance, Programming | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Game Developer Magazine Floating Point

Posted on September 9, 2012 by

This is for references, code examples, and discussion regarding the floating-point article in the October 2012 Game Developer Magazine.

Posted in Floating Point | Tagged | 3 Comments

Doubles are not floats, so don’t compare them

Posted on June 26, 2012 by

I’ve seen a few online discussions linking to my Comparing Floating Point Numbers page for misguided reasons and I wanted to discuss those reasons to help people understand why throwing epsilons at the problem without understanding the situation is a … Continue reading →

Posted in Floating Point, Programming | Tagged , , , , | 25 Comments

Floating-Point Poetry

Posted on June 3, 2012 by

I gave a talk at iFest on Saturday that briefly covered some performance and precision issues taken from my series of floating-point blog posts. My talk was after Ed Fries, who did a brilliant talk on art and constraints, centered … Continue reading →

Posted in Floating Point | Tagged , | 3 Comments

That’s Not Normal–the Performance of Odd Floats

Posted on May 20, 2012 by

Denormals, NaNs, and infinities round out the set of standard floating-point values, and these important values can sometimes cause performance problems. The good news is, it’s getting better, and there are diagnostics you can use to watch for problems. In … Continue reading →

Posted in AltDevBlogADay, Floating Point, Performance, Programming | Tagged , , , , , | 20 Comments

Exceptional Floating Point

Posted on April 21, 2012 by

Floating-point math has an answer for everything, but sometimes that’s not what you want. Sometimes instead of getting an answer to the question sqrt(-1.0) (it’s NaN) it’s better to know that your software is asking imaginary questions. The IEEE standard … Continue reading →

Posted in AltDevBlogADay, Floating Point, Programming | Tagged , , , , | 26 Comments