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1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V2.0//EN" "http://forrest.apache.org/dtd/document-v20.dtd">
3<document> 
4<header>
5    <title>Hoard Frequently Asked Questions</title> 
6</header>
7
8<body>
9  <section>
10<title>
11What kind of applications will Hoard speed up?
12</title>
13  <p>
14Hoard will always improve the performance of multithreaded programs
15running on multiprocessors that make frequent use of the heap (calls
16to malloc/free or new/delete, as well as many STL functions). Because
17Hoard avoids false sharing, Hoard also speeds up programs that only
18occasionally call heap functions but access these objects frequently.
19  </p>
20</section>
21
22
23  <section>
24<title>
25  I'm using the STL but not seeing any performance improvement. Why not?
26  </title>
27      <p>
28In order to benefit from Hoard, you have to tell STL to use malloc instead of its internal custom memory allocator:
29      </p>
30
31<source>
32typedef list&lt;unsigned int, malloc_alloc&gt; mylist;
33</source>
34
35</section>
36
37
38<section><title>
39What systems does Hoard work on?
40</title>
41  <p>
42Hoard has been successfully tested on numerous Windows, Linux and
43Solaris systems, including a 4-processor x86 box running Windows
44NT/2000, a 4-processor x86 box running RedHat Linux 6.0 and 6.1, and a
4516-processor Sun Enterprise server running Solaris.
46  </p>
47</section>
48
49
50<section><title>
51Have you compared Hoard with SmartHeap SMP?
52</title>
53  <p>
54We tried SmartHeap SMP but it did not work on our Suns (due to an
55apparent race condition in the code).
56  </p>
57  </section>
58
59
60  <section>
61<title>
62      Have you compared Hoard against mtmalloc or libumem?
63</title>
64<p>
65Yes. Hoard is much faster than either. For example, here's an
66execution of threadtest on Solaris:
67</p>
68      <table>
69           <tr>
70             <td>Default:</td>
71             <td>4.60 seconds</td>
72           </tr>
73           <tr>
74             <td>Libmtmalloc:</td>
75             <td>6.23 seconds</td>
76           </tr>
77           <tr>
78             <td>Libumem:</td>
79             <td>5.47 seconds</td>
80           </tr>
81           <tr>
82             <td>Hoard 3.2:</td>
83             <td>1.99 seconds</td>
84           </tr>
85     </table>
86</section>
87
88<section>
89<title>
90Can I use Hoard with a commercial application?
91</title>
92<p>
93Yes. Hoard is available under two licenses. The first license is the
94GNU General Public License. That license is free, but it requires you
95to open-source your application. The second option is to purchase a
96license from the University of Texas at Austin. Click the "Licensing Info"
97link on the left for more information.
98</p>
99
100</section>
101
102</body>
103</document>
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