I would like to optimize the performance of octave on a machine that has multiple processors. I have optimized LAPACK and BLAS to use parallel threads, and where LAPACK is used, that helps a lot. I was initially surprised that the enhanced LAPACK did not speed up the execution of, for instance, u=K\F, if K is sparse, but now I realize that sparse matrix calculations are done with a special set of tools (see
http://www.obihiro.ac.jp/~suzukim/masuda/octave/html3/octave_113.html)
Does anyone know if it is possible to tune the sparse matrix package to take advantage of multiple processors?