Digium release new G729 codecs and test tool

Digium have announced new versions of the G729 codec.

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The new modules were built using the latest (4.3) release of the GNU C compiler, and use a number of new optimization methods available in that release to significantly improve encoding/decoding performance. In addition, we now build the modules in both 32-bit and 64-bit varieties for each CPU flavor that support both modes, so that users with 64-bit CPUs running a 32-bit Linux installation can still have a version of the module optimized for their CPU type. GCC 4.3 also provides optimizations for some newer CPU families (Intel Core2, AMD Barcelona, and others), so we’ve made those flavors available with this release.

Also a test tool has been released to cut the guess work as to what will be the best version to run,

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In the past, we’ve offered different CPU flavors of the module to hopefully provide the best encoding/decoding performance, but it was up to the user to install and test each flavor to determine which one provided the best performance. This process is difficult and time consuming, and did not always provide reliable results. To help with this situation, we’ve now released a tool called ‘benchg729′, which can be run on the target system and will execute encoding speed tests (using a real audio sample) for each CPU flavor that we offer for that platform, and then report the results and suggest the best performing module flavor for that system. Note that the use of this tool requires that the system have at least one valid channel license for the Digium G.729 codec installed; it will not run without a license.

Full details are on Digiums site at http://blogs.digium.com/2009/02/06/digi ... -released/


an example output is below.

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Results: Average for flavor 'i686' is 619 millseconds. Average for flavor 'pentium3m' is 581 millseconds. Average for flavor 'pentium-m' is 558 millseconds. Average for flavor 'pentium4m' is 549 millseconds. Average for flavor 'prescott' is 549 millseconds. Average for flavor 'nocona' is 547 millseconds. Average for flavor 'core2' is 554 millseconds. Average for flavor 'k6-3' is 709 millseconds. Average for flavor 'athlon' is 626 millseconds. Average for flavor 'athlon-xp' is 583 millseconds. Average for flavor 'opteron' is 972 millseconds. Average for flavor 'opteron-sse3' is 972 millseconds. Average for flavor 'barcelona' is 561 millseconds. Average for flavor 'c3' is 712 millseconds. Average for flavor 'c3-2' is 582 millseconds. Recommended flavor for this system is 'nocona' with an average of 547 milliseconds.

There are a few issues as it seems to have issues with older dual proc machines.

Have fun

Ian