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Subject: Re: Implementation of the abs() function [o.t.]

Author: Omid David Tabibi

Date: 11:00:03 07/06/03

Go up one level in this thread


On July 06, 2003 at 13:29:56, Gerd Isenberg wrote:

>On July 06, 2003 at 12:57:59, Dieter Buerssner wrote:
>
>>On July 06, 2003 at 05:02:50, Gerd Isenberg wrote:
>>
>>
>>>With mvc using math.h abs is fastest. With gcc cdq inline assembly abs or omids
>>>c-abs is much faster than the branching lib abs (maybe a macro from some header
>>>file?).
>>
>>Hi Gerd, as far as I can see, abs is no macro in my gcc environment. It wouldn't
>>be possible with Standard C methods, would it? Because you would not be allowed
>>to evaluate the argument twice. Of course, they could use compiler specific
>>extensions and/or inlining. I checked by precompiling the source. I think, Gcc
>>will detect abs() just like other functions (memcpy for example) and can inline
>>it directly. Ineeded I see the "simple_abs" method branch in the assembly.
>>
>>The strange thing, that omid_abs was significantly faster than nothing with MSVC
>>and rand(), do you have any idea?
>
>hmm, not really - may be because omids_abs is the only one which predicts the
>conditional loop jump correctly all the times ;-)

That's what I thought; but apparently 'sar' costs more than the branch I tried
to evade.


>
>What about unrolling the loop a bit, eg. repeat the body statement 2..10 times.
>Doubling the speed of a function by adding additional abs code - not bad ;-)
>
>Gerd
>
>
>Here the assembly of tfunc_omid_abs
>>
>>PUBLIC  @tfunc_omid_abs@0
>>;       COMDAT @tfunc_omid_abs@0
>>_TEXT   SEGMENT
>>@tfunc_omid_abs@0 PROC NEAR                             ; COMDAT
>>; Line 61
>>        push    esi
>>        push    edi
>>        xor     esi, esi
>>        mov     edi, 1000000000                         ; 3b9aca00H
>>$L877:
>>        call    _rand
>>        sub     eax, 16384                              ; 00004000H
>>        mov     ecx, eax
>>        sar     ecx, 31                                 ; 0000001fH
>>        mov     edx, ecx
>>        xor     edx, eax
>>        sub     edx, ecx
>>        add     esi, edx
>>        dec     edi
>>        jne     SHORT $L877
>>        pop     edi
>>        mov     eax, esi
>>        pop     esi
>>        ret     0
>>@tfunc_omid_abs@0 ENDP
>>
>>Now for tfunc_nothing
>>
>>;       COMDAT @tfunc_nothing@0
>>_TEXT   SEGMENT
>>@tfunc_nothing@0 PROC NEAR                              ; COMDAT
>>; Line 228
>>        push    esi
>>        push    edi
>>        xor     esi, esi
>>        mov     edi, 1000000000                         ; 3b9aca00H
>>$L969:
>>        call    _rand
>>        dec     edi
>>        lea     esi, DWORD PTR [esi+eax-16384]
>>        jne     SHORT $L969
>>        pop     edi
>>        mov     eax, esi
>>        pop     esi
>>        ret     0
>>@tfunc_nothing@0 ENDP
>>
>>Looks about as tight as possible. The a += rand()-16384 with one lea.
>>But also shows, that with this method and clever inlining of the compiler,
>>things are not 100% comparable.
>>
>>And tfunc_abs (library):
>>
>>PUBLIC  @tfunc_abs@0
>>;       COMDAT @tfunc_abs@0
>>_TEXT   SEGMENT
>>@tfunc_abs@0 PROC NEAR                                  ; COMDAT
>>; Line 229
>>        push    esi
>>        push    edi
>>        xor     esi, esi
>>        mov     edi, 1000000000                         ; 3b9aca00H
>>$L978:
>>        call    _rand
>>        sub     eax, 16384                              ; 00004000H
>>        cdq
>>        xor     eax, edx
>>        sub     eax, edx
>>        add     esi, eax
>>        dec     edi
>>        jne     SHORT $L978
>>        pop     edi
>>        mov     eax, esi
>>        pop     esi
>>        ret     0
>>@tfunc_abs@0 ENDP
>>
>>All very similar, all should use comparable time (the time of rand()), but
>>tfunc_omid_abs is double as fast!
>>
>>Does the P4 like aligned jump lables? Can they give such extreme effects? Hard
>>to believe.
>>
>>BTW. When I
>>
>>#define RAND_VAL() ((int)n)
>>
>>to get rid of the rand() overhead (and of course also giving the branch using
>>versions an advantage), I get normal results:
>>
>>       nothing 4051657984 0.811
>>           abs 4051657984 1.702
>>    simple_abs 4051657984 1.923
>>      omid_abs 4051657984 1.702
>>       sbb_abs 4051657984 4.156
>>       cdq_abs 4051657984 4.457
>>      fish_abs 4051657984 2.063
>>       sar_abs 4051657984 3.324
>>     cmovl_abs 4051657984 2.604
>>     cmovs_abs 4051657984 2.644
>>
>>405164798 = ((1e9 * (1e9+1))/2) % 2^^32; as expected for N_ITERATIONS=1e9.
>>
>>The 0.8 s for nothing is about 2 cycles, which seems reasonable for the loop
>>
>>$L977:
>>        add     eax, ecx
>>        dec     ecx
>>        jne     SHORT $L977
>>
>>Regards,
>>Dieter



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