Determine precision

Determining the degree of precision that represents a reasonable trade-off between numeric accuracy in the solution and acceptable performance in your application is important.

Clearly, the degree of precision (that is, the granularity of the definition and solution) needs to be adapted to the aims of the application. There is no point in counting seconds if your problem works in terms of years. In short, choose an appropriate unit, both for the problem representation and for the solution.

High precision may mean slower performance. You may need to experiment to determine the degree of precision that represents a reasonable trade-off between numeric accuracy in the solution and acceptable performance in your application.