[FFmpeg-devel] remove DEC Alpha DSP & support code

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le 10 juin 2024 14:57:29 GMT+03:00, Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc> a écrit :
>Also we have alpha fate clients:
>https://fate.ffmpeg.org/?query=subarch:alpha%2F%2F

Are there? I only see Ubuntu 22.04 builds which must be cross-compiled since Ubuntu 22.04 doesn't support DEC Alpha, not even as a port.

So I guess the tests are run on user-mode QEMU? For the sake of the argument and to answer your performance question, SIMD on QEMU is in my experience much *slower* than scalar C, due to limitations of TCG. So if that's the goal post, then removing the optimisations is actually a performance win.

Realistically though, Alpha was dropped for good by its vendor in 2007, with ongoing general commercial support ending in 2012.