RE: i386 backend

[dewar at gnat dot com]

<<I am not sure I understand what you mean. I have a pretty deep insight in
where my programs "hotspots" are. I have compiled it with many different
compilers, profiled it with different profilers etc. But how can I tell
where the problem with gcc is from that, when I know nothing about the
internals of a compiler?
The biggest "hotspot" in my program is an evaluation function which uses
appx. 30% of the time, according to profilers. This evaluation function is
mainly integer arithmetics and array lookups, in a very complex way. We're
talking appx. 2000 lines of code for one function that eventually just
returns an int.
>>

We need the sample code!

We don't want you to "tell where the problem with gcc is from that" [in
terms of the internals]. We just need a sample source that shows the problem
[in terms of poor generated code]/

In other words the useful contribution is something like

here is a program that I compiled with -O3 -funroll-loops and it
still ran 30% slower. 

(and if possible, add)

The reason seems like it may be the five instructions in a row in the inner 
loop that all load the constant 1 into EAX 

:-)