Hi all,
Please suggest a good windows compiler for FORTRAN 77/90 that could run smoothly on Windows 7. I tried Microsoft Fortran Powerstation but found it erroneous.
Please help.
Thanks!
Hi,
Check out GFortran for Windows if you want something free, otherwise Intel Fortran compiler can be a good option. Please let us know if you have some special needs.
https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortranBinaries
https://software.intel.com/en-us/fortran-compilers
@ Y. Azizi please share the download link for MSDEV.
Thanks.
Thanks all others for their help.
I use gfortran and use the Code::Blocks IDE on Windows 8 and it runs very well. You can find info on this IDE and where to download it here:
http://www.codeblocks.org/component/content/article/1-general/1-the-open-source-cross-platform-free-c-cpp-fortran-ide
And there are several videos on YouTube that are very helpful in setting up the Code::Blocks IDE and the fortran compiler. What's really nice about this compiler and IDE is that if you are on a limited budget, it is free.
Regards, Alan
Alan Kleinman thanks; I had pointed it out already, but I should add that my experience shows that it is rather slow. If you have Windows 10 and want something both free and high-performance, I would suggest installing Ubuntu (or other distributions available on Microsoft Store) on Windows via WSL (see below for link) and installing gfortran or gcc/g++ or virtually anything else you have on a native Linux distribution and enjoy the performance. I had a C++ code and I did my best to optimize it for my i7 laptop, but just adding a -march=native command line option outperformed the mighty Visual Studio with all optimizations! I have also been able to to run GUI application when using an X-server like Xming or packages as complex as Trilinos. One big bonus of this method is that you can run codes that would not normally compile or run on Windows, for example valgrind. WSL helps running native Linux binaries (yes, I mean ELF!) on Windows.
WSL (Windows Services for Linux): See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
Hope this helps!
If you run gfortran using code::blocks in its default mode with all the debug options turned on, the executable programs will run slowly. But if you go to the "Setting" tab, select Compiler..., will open a window with checkboxes that allow you to optimize your program for speed, size, and even for the particular processor your computer uses (including your i7). My calculations don't take a lot of memory but use lots of clock cycles. Setting these flags allows the compiler to optimize for your particular application and use any math features your particular processor has. Whether there is a significant speed difference between gfortran and Microsoft's version of fortran I don't know. What I suspect is that the speed of execution depends a lot on your compiler settings. What I do know is there is a significant difference in price. And I thought it was worthwhile to mention the code::blocks ide because it addresses the issue of having to run gfortran in the command line mode which is what you would have to do if running gfortran alone without an ide. And I can't comment on the advantages of disadvantages of the gnu C and C++ and microsoft versions of those languages because I don't program in those languages.
But since you brought up the speed of execution, I did a search and came across this page where they tested different fortran compilers:
https://polyhedron.com/?page_id=175
The intel fortran (as you mentioned in your first post) is the fastest under windows 10 and i7 of all the compilers on average by about 50--100%. The speed of the gfortran is pretty much on par with the other compilers.
Alan Kleinman I agree that code::blocks is very useful. I have used it both on Windows and Linux. And yeah, I know about all the optimization setting you can set via code::blocks (and some that you cannot, such as -fopenmp if I remember correctly). Anyway, I still think that WSL is a very good alternative, because as I mentioned before, it lets you use programs that cannot be compiled for Windows at all.
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