Author: Dieter Buerssner
Date: 09:57:59 07/06/03
Go up one level in this thread
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? 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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