dll's and performance

[Ludwig]

Hi,

I have several financial models(monte carlo) created in VB5 which I
use in Excel through dll's(Well Xll's). I use this technique because
my main concern is performance. Would I obtain a siginificant
performance increase if I upgraded my models/functions to a newer
version or platform, say VB6 or higher, VC++ etc? If so, is the
process to create the dll's is as simple as with VB5?
I also own visual studio.Net although I am just learning the ropes.

Specs

Windows Xp
Excel 2000
P4 2 ggz 512 ram
VB5 Pro edition

any help deeply appreciated, thx

 

[Rob van Gelder]

I don't think VB6 can create XLL files. Only ActiveX DLLs which are
different to standard DLLs.

The terminology and acronyms actually confuse me. Nowadays external Excel
libraries are through COM.

 

[Ludwig]

Sorry had a lapse there, you are correct, they are ActiveX dll's. But
the question still stands, would the dll created by whichever
method(activeX, COM etc) be significantly faster in newer versions or
platforms(Say VC++ or VC#)?

thx.

 

[Rob van Gelder]

There are a number of factors involved.
eg. Was the original compiler optimised for modern chipsets (Pentium 4)?
Was the original compiler optimised for performance or for size?

It's difficult to tell without actually doing it.

I don't believe you will get much performance boost by switching languages -
they're all pretty good for chipset feature use.

Try recompiling the source, playing with the compiler options.