Parallel compilation for Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 with dual / quad core

[Eóin]

This is an absolute gem. I can't think of anything more to say about it other than it just works, and works fantastically. Why it's not a part of VS 2005 already I don't know.

Close Visual Studio and uninstall any previous version before installing this new one or MPCL won't work properly.

NOTE: This is a beta version that will stop working on 1st of March, 2009. Then You will have to download an updated version if you want to continue using MPCL.

DOWNLOAD MPCL 0.65b

After installation, a new "MPCLAddin" entry will be shown under the tools menu.

MPCL won't parallelize compilation of .cpp files marked as "Create precompiled Header /Yc", so create only a few precompiled headers and mark all other files as "Use precompiled header /Yu"

You can disable Parallelization for specific projects in a solution, by adding NOMPCL to the list of Preprocessor definitions, in Project Settings/Configuration Properties/C/C++/Preprocessor. This option is only available from V0.65b

[f0dder]

Hmm, the official /MP switch wasn't added in 2005? Can it really be that it wasn't added until 2008? Not even as an undocumented option in 2005? Only problem with /MP switch is that it's stored in your .vcproj file, which is somewhat unhandy when multiple developers are working on a project (ie., some on single-core laptops, some on quadcore workstations).

After googling: apparently /MP works in 2005 but was buggy. Iirc I used it without problems, though. For commandline builds, scons ftw, anyway.

[Eóin]

I must look into scons again. For commandline builds I tried out Boost.Build for a long while but lost faith when it started leaving some build targets out of date.