Static linking vs dynamic linking

Question

Are there any compelling performance reasons to choose static linking over dynamic linking or vice versa in certain situations? I\'ve heard or read the following, but I don\

Answer 1

Best example for dynamic linking is, when the library is dependent on the used hardware. In ancient times the C math library was decided to be dynamic, so that each platform can use all processor capabilities to optimize it.

An even better example might be OpenGL. OpenGl is an API that is implemented differently by AMD and NVidia. And you are not able to use an NVidia implementation on an AMD card, because the hardware is different. You cannot link OpenGL statically into your program, because of that. Dynamic linking is used here to let the API be optimized for all platforms.