A good random number generator for C
c, random
Solution
This seems like a good use-case for the Mersenne Twister
- It's faster than most standard implementations of rand()
- It has a very long (2^19937 − 1) period
- It has a pretty high quality - it passes most standardized randomness tests
- It's public domain
Problem
I need a good random number generator for a program I'm writing in C. It's a fractal flame generator, if you're interested. My images were coming out very grainy, even though I had success with the same algorithm in the past. The difference, I finally realized, was the random number generator I was using. Incredibly, it makes an ENORMOUS difference. I'm hoping that an even better random number generator might yield better results. The answer could come in the form of a code sample or a link to a pre-existing random number library. The most important requirements: - it should produce relatively high quality streams of random numbers - its period must be over ten billion - it should be fast enough and offer a good performance trade-off.