User's Manual

Contents v
22007E/0—November 1999 AMD Athlon™ Processor x86 Code Optimization
Use 8-Bit Sign-Extended Displacements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Code Padding Using Neutral Code Fillers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Recommendations for the AMD Athlon Processor. . . . . . . . . 40
Recommendations for AMD-K6
®
Family and
AMD Athlon Processor Blended Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5 Cache and Memory Optimizations 45
Memory Size and Alignment Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Avoid Memory Size Mismatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Align Data Where Possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Use the 3DNow! PREFETCH and PREFETCHW Instructions. . . . . 46
Take Advantage of Write Combining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Avoid Placing Code and Data in the Same 64-Byte Cache Line. . . . 50
Store-to-Load Forwarding Restrictions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Store-to-Load Forwarding Pitfalls—True Dependencies. . . . 51
Summary of Store-to-Load Forwarding Pitfalls to Avoid. . . . 54
Stack Alignment Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Align TBYTE Variables on Quadword Aligned Addresses. . . . . . . . 55
C Language Structure Component Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Sort Variables According to Base Type Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6 Branch Optimizations 57
Avoid Branches Dependent on Random Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
AMD Athlon Processor Specific Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Blended AMD-K6 and AMD Athlon Processor Code . . . . . . . 58
Always Pair CALL and RETURN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Replace Branches with Computation in 3DNow! Code . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Muxing Constructs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Sample Code Translated into 3DNow! Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Avoid the Loop Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Avoid Far Control Transfer Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Avoid Recursive Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66