Floating point versus fixed point: what are the pros/cons?

Question

Floating point type represents a number by storing its significant digits and its exponent separately on separate binary words so it fits in 16, 32, 64 or 128 bits.

Fixe

Answer 1

The diferrence between floating point and integer math depends on the CPU you have in mind. On Intel chips the difference is not big in clockticks. Int math is still faster because there are multiple integer ALU's that can work in parallel. Compilers are also smart to use special adress calculation instructions to optimize add/multiply in a single instruction. Conversion counts as an operation too, so just choose your type and stick with it.

In C++ you can build your own type for fixed point math. You just define as struct with one int and override the appropriate overloads, and make them do what they normally do plus a shift to put the comma back to the right position.