title: Avoiding denormal values in C++
body: <p>After searching a long time for a performance bug, I read about denormal floating point values.</p>
  
  <p>Apparently denormalized floating-point values can be a major performance concern as is illustrated in this question:
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9314534/why-does-changing-0-1f-to-0-slow-down-performance-by-10x">Why does changing 0.1f to 0 slow down performance by 10x?</a></p>
  
  <p>I have an Intel Core 2 Duo and I am compiling with gcc, using <code>-O2</code>.</p>
  
  <p>So what do I do? Can I somehow instruct g++ to avoid denormal values?
  If not, can I somehow test if a <code>float</code> is denormal?</p>