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Subject: Re: a question about speed difference that I do not understand

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 11:11:58 12/05/01

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On December 05, 2001 at 13:55:19, Ed Schröder wrote:

>On December 05, 2001 at 13:35:02, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On December 05, 2001 at 12:42:07, Ed Schröder wrote:
>>
>>>On December 05, 2001 at 06:46:07, Severi Salminen wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>#define color(target) (((info[target])>>3)&3)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>my data.c file includes
>>>>>>
>>>>>>int info[64];
>>>>>>int side;
>>>>>>int direction[64][64];
>>>>>>int kingsquare[2];
>>>>>>int pin[64];
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Perhaps the data types could be a reason for some microscopic effects. If the
>>>>>variable "side" is for instance of type "short", the compiler has to zero-extend
>>>>>the variable to word-size before indexing (because of the array access).
>>>>
>>>>But as you can see the variables are all ints. So no type conversions needed. I
>>>>believe there is just some stupid alignment thing happening or something and
>>>>that's why the program slows down a bit. I'd use side instead of color(sq) and
>>>>hopefully the speedup will show up later.
>>>>
>>>>Severi
>>>
>>>
>>>You could try to decrease the
>>>
>>>int direction[64][64];
>>>
>>>by one, thus:
>>>
>>>int direction[63][64];
>>>
>>>The result might be the compiler doesn't have to do an expensive multiply
>>>(*65) but is able to do a simple shift-left bits instruction (SHL 6) which
>>>shift left the bytes 6 times, thus a multiply by 64.
>>>
>>>Ed
>>
>>Thanks for your advices
>>
>>direction[i][j] gives information about the direction between every 2 squares(it
>>can get values 0-3 for rook directions 4-7 for bishops direction,-2 for knight
>>directions and -1 for no direction).
>>
>>Doing what you suggest mean ignoring the corner.
>>
>>It is possible that I should change my data structure and simply stop using this
>>big array
>>
>>Example: Instead of using
>>
>>if (direction[square][target]<3) in order to see if square and target are in
>>rook direction(I know that they are in queen direction because they are result
>>of pseudolegal king move in reply to check)
>>
>>I can use
>>
>>if ((file0(square)==file0(target))||(rank0(square)==rank0(target)))
>>
>>when I have:
>>#define fil0(i) ((i)&7)
>>#define rank0(i) ((i)>>3)
>>
>>Uri
>
>
>Well, I never leave it up to the compiler to decide things for me but that's
>easy becausese my background is assembler and my way of programming in C++
>still is as close to assembler as possible. In your case I would program it
>as follows:
>
>static char direction [65*65];       // create an area big enough, using char

I do not understand why 65*65 and 64*64 are enough(squares in the board are the
numbers 0-63)
>
>To access the table:
>
>int x,y, char result;
>
>result = direction [x<<6][y];

I guess that direction[x<<6|y] when 0<=x<=63 and the same for y is enough


>
>That is all. Any good compiler will produce fast code, something like:
>
>mov    EAX,x
>mov    EBX,y
>shl    EAX,6
>add    EAX,EBX
>mov    CL,direction[EAX]
>mov    result,CL
>
>Note that in your case "char" is enough, it saves an extra SHL 2 (shift-left).

thanks
I know nothing about assembler and I may try it.

My code is only based on plain C.

Uri



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