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Re: [PATCH, i386] Add prefixes avoidance tuning for silvermont target
- From: Ilya Enkovich <enkovich dot gnu at gmail dot com>
- To: Jakub Jelinek <jakub at redhat dot com>
- Cc: Andi Kleen <andi at firstfloor dot org>, gcc-patches <gcc-patches at gcc dot gnu dot org>
- Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 14:54:13 +0400
- Subject: Re: [PATCH, i386] Add prefixes avoidance tuning for silvermont target
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <20140702103536 dot GA1827 at msticlxl57 dot ims dot intel dot com> <87r423u3y2 dot fsf at tassilo dot jf dot intel dot com> <20140702162700 dot GX31640 at tucnak dot redhat dot com>
2014-07-02 20:27 GMT+04:00 Jakub Jelinek <jakub@redhat.com>:
> On Wed, Jul 02, 2014 at 09:21:25AM -0700, Andi Kleen wrote:
>> Ilya Enkovich <enkovich.gnu@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > Silvermont processors have penalty for instructions having 4+ bytes of
>> > prefixes (including escape bytes in opcode). This situation happens
>> > when REX prefix is used in SSE4 instructions. This patch tries to
>> > avoid such situation by preferring xmm0-xmm7 usage over xmm8-xmm15 in
>> > those instructions. I achieved it by adding new tuning flag and new
>> > alternatives affected by tuning.
>>
>> Why make it a tuning flag? Shouldn't this help unconditionally for code
>> size everywhere? Or is there some drawback?
>
> I don't think it will make code smaller, if you already have some value in
> xmm8..xmm15 register, then by not allowing those registers directly on SSE4
> insns just means it reloading and larger code.
>
> BTW, is that change needed also when emitting AVX insns instead of SSE4?
This is for Silvermont only. It does not have AVX.
Ilya
>
> Jakub