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Subject: Re: 64 bits

Author: Keith Evans

Date: 18:48:10 06/20/02

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On June 20, 2002 at 20:56:44, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On June 20, 2002 at 14:07:50, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>
>>On June 20, 2002 at 13:03:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>It could certainly be done.  However, I don't see what it would prove.
>>>Other than that 64 bit operations are more efficient when done in one
>>>"chunk" than in two.  That seems intuitive anyway.  It would also present
>>>a few problems, with the FirstOne() and LastOne() PopCnt() functions that
>>>use assembly on the PC but not on the 64 bit machines (yet).
>>
>>How would this be a problem? Why are you talking about PCs? The experiment is to
>>force a 64-bit chip to use 32-bit ints for bitboards. The PC is not a 64-bit
>>platform (yet) so we're OBVIOUSLY not talking about it.
>>
>>As for not seeing what the experiment would prove, I assume you're joking.
>>
>>-Tom
>
>
>Not joking.  When you have multiple degrees of freedom, things change and it
>is not easy to attribute results to a specific change.  Does the compiler
>or cpu do better with a larger number of 32 bit instructions?  Or better with
>a smaller number of 64 bit operations?  Do the 32 bit operations cause
>unnecessary pipeline stalls due to things like the carry bit and whatever,
>or do they not?  Does the compiler produce as elegant a code for 32 and 64 or
>does it do better on one or the other?  When the 64 bit version runs 2x faster
>than the 32 bit version is it because of the 64 bit advantage or because of a
>bad 32 bit executable from the compiler?  When the 64 bit runs only 5% faster
>than the 32 bit version, same question?

It sounds a little like you're being disingenuous. If you did the experiment and
got a result like "the 64 bit runs only 5% faster than the 32 bit version" then
would you ignore it because you're not sure why? And still tout the performance
advantages of bitboards for 64-bit machines?

Are you interested in validating the idea that bitboards are a win on 64-bit
machines? We're just trying to propose an experiment which although imperfect
would be more reliable than mere intuition. Any ideas?

-Keith



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