Delphi or FreePascal?

[Angelo]

Dear readers,

I see almost everyone using FPC, may I ask why that is?
Is it, because FPC is free to use? Or is it quicker then Delphi?
I mean, why does everyone seems to use FPC, or what are the advantages of FPC?

Thanks in advance,

Angelo.

[Setharian]

not sure where did you come to that conclusion....FPC is has two advantages over Delphi which are: it is cross-platform (can compile for different CPU architectures and operating systems) and free...if you need your application to be cross-platform, FPC is the way to do, if you care only about Windows you can use Delphi since from my personal experience with its IDE you are way more productive.....ultimately it is up to you....

[Angelo]

So it's not that FPC is faster (I mean make your game faster) or something in that direction?
If FPC only has these 2 advantages, I'll continue using Delphi.

Thanks for your quick reply...

Almost everyone I know is using FPC, so that's why I came up with that conclusion.

Angelo.

[czar]

A recent poll here showed delphi to be the preferred choice. -

Most people used Delphi 79% while FPC use came in at 2%.

[dmantione]

There is no single answer to the question who generates the faster code, sometimes this is FPC, sometimes this is Delphi. However, with current versions of FPC, you will find that in a majority of situations FPC is the better compiler.

For games, users of FPC will especially be in advantage due to the ability to generate SSE2 floating point code, which speeds up floating point with double digit percentages.

[godbeast]

You can use Larazus instead of Delphi if you care for productive ide. If you ever programmed in Turbo Pascal and you enjoyed it, pure FPC is the best choice if you want to start modern programming. What I like most in FPC and its ide is that you can this retro feeling

[jdarling]

The other advantage of the Delphi compiler over FPC is in the level and value of the optimizations. Delphi will actually generate a smaller and faster application on Windows then FPC will. This basically comes down to how long Delphi has been in production and the people that built the optimizer. Personally, I'm still looking for a way to use the Intel Compiler with pascal source .

[wodzu]

For games, users of FPC will especially be in advantage due to the ability to generate SSE2 floating point code, which speeds up floating point with double digit percentages.

So..FPC compiler generates assembly code with usage of new CPU functions? I wish that was true but I hardly believe it since I haven't seen a compiler even with MMX implementation.

[Angelo]

Ok ok, it's clear for me, I can continue using Delphi!
Thanks everyone for their reply.

[dmantione]

So..FPC compiler generates assembly code with usage of new CPU functions?

Yes, it does. We don't have a good loop vectorizer though, so don't expect many SIMD tricks from FPC.

I wish that was true but I hardly believe it since I haven't seen a compiler even with MMX implementation.

Look better Pathscale, Intel, PGI are all compilers which can heavily vectorize code.