All the examples discussed in this guide so far use
double precision floating-point numbers to store vector
and matrix elements. In some situations, it may be
desirable to use single-precision numbers.
Matrices that use single-precision numbers only use half
the memory of matrices with double-precision numbers,
and so require only half the memory bandwidth.
The drawback is the lower precision, which makes
numerical problems much more common.
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Working with Single Precision Vectors and Matrices
All vector and matrix types are generic over the element type,
This means they work with single-precision floating point numbers as well.
However, by default single-precision operations will use the generic
implementation, which is very slow.
To use specialized implementations, add a reference to
the Extreme.Numerics.SinglePrecision.dll assembly.
This will cause the specialized implementation to be picked up automatically.
Conversions to and from Double Precision
All single-precision vector and matrix types can be
converted to double-precision. Although
it would make sense from a purely logical standpoint to allow
these conversions to be implicit, the large cost in terms of
time and memory makes it more advisable that
conversions are done explicitly.
Conversions from double precision vectors and matrices
to single-precision vectors and matrices can cause
a loss of information and must also be done explicitly.