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#REDIRECT [[Approximations of π#Software for calculating π]]
Over the years, several programs have been written for calculating [[π]] to [[arbitrary-precision arithmetic|many digits]] on [[personal computer]]s.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Software for calculating Pi}}
==General-purpose==
[[Category:Pi -related software | ]] ▼Most [[computer algebra system]]s can calculate π and other common [[mathematical constant]]s to any desired precision.
Functions for calculating π are also included in many general [[software library|software libraries]] for [[arbitrary-precision arithmetic]], for instance [[MPFR]].
==Special-purpose==
Programs designed for the specific purpose of calculating π may have better performance than general-purpose mathematical software. They typically implement [[checkpointing]] and efficient [[disk swapping]] to facilitate extremely long-running and memory-expensive computations.
* '''PiFast''', by Xavier Gourdon was the fastest program for [[Microsoft Windows]] in 2003. According to its author, it can compute one million digits in 3.5 seconds on a 2.4 GHz [[Pentium 4]].<ref>http://numbers.computation.free.fr/Constants/PiProgram/timings.html</ref> PiFast can also compute other irrational numbers like ''[[e (mathematical constant)|e]]'' and [[square root of two|√2]]. It can also work at lesser efficiency with very little memory (down to a few tens of megabytes to compute well over a billion (10<sup>9</sup>) digits). This [[closed source]] [[freeware]] tool is a popular benchmark in the [[overclock]]ing community. PiFast 4.4 is available from [http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/pi.html Stu's Pi page]. PiFast 4.3 is available from Gourdon's page.
* '''QuickPi''' v4.5 Alpha 12 by Steve Pagliarulo for Windows is faster than PiFast for runs of under 400,000,000 digits. Version 4.5 is not publicly available, but v4.00a is available on Stu's Pi Page below. Like PiFast, QuickPi can also compute other irrational numbers like ''e'' √2 and √3. The software may be obtained from the author through the Pi-Hacks Yahoo! forum, or from [http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/pi.html Stu's Pi page].
==Most digits calculated on a home computer==
The most digits calculated on a home PC is by Shigeru Kondo on his Xeon 3.6Ghz, 12GB RAM, HDD 2x300GB (RAID0) using Windows 2003 server x64. Kondo calculated 70,000,000,000 digits using the 64-bit version of Pagliarulo's QuickPi v4.00. It took 73 days beginning on Dec 5, 2006.
[http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/pi.html Stu's Pi page] is compiling a listing of large digit runs (over 1-gig or 1,073,741,824).
Latest record for digits on a supercomputer is 1,241,100,000,000 digits as of November 2002 by [[Yasumasa Kanada]]'s lab at The University of Tokyo.
==See also==
* [[Pi]]
* [[Computing π]]
* [[Super PI]]
==References==
<references />
==External links==
*[http://myownlittleworld.com/miscellaneous/computers/pilargetable.html Conclusive comparison of many implementations and algorithms for calculating Pi]
*[http://myownlittleworld.com/miscellaneous/computers/otherpiprograms.html Comparison of different pi programs (part 2 of previous link)]
*[http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/pi.html Stu's Pi page] - List of fastest Pi programs on the planet for the PC
*[http://momonga.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~ooura/fft.html An open source FFT]
*[http://momonga.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~ooura/pi_fft.html An open source FFT for pi]
*[http://ja0hxv.calico.jp/pai/estart.html Shigeru Kondou's Pi page - in English, digits avail. to 10b]
*[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pi-hacks/ Pi-Hacks 'Yahoo! Groups' Discussion Forum]
*[http://www.swox.com/gmp/pi-with-gmp.html Computing billions of π digits using GMP]
*[http://packages.debian.org/stable/math/pi A fast package for Debian GNU/Linux]
*[http://www.apfloat.org/apfloat_java/applet/pi.html A pi calculation applet]
▲[[Category:Pi software]]
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