Invoke, call, jump. Simple benchmark

[daydreamer]

So it's better not to align a proc???

I thought it should be like that with Align vs unaligned  proc start,because innerloop some opcodes later ends up aligned

Excellent point; hadn't thought of that.

It's not necessarily the proc's entry point that you want aligned:
it's whatever instruction that marks the start of a time-sensitive part of the proc, a loop or whatever.
So the alignment should probably be done inside the proc, not outside.

Might wanna start thread with comparing Align 64 with a innerloop vs unaligned loop, where cpu constantly need to reload cache lines

[jj2007]

mysterious error,alignedinvoke.exe wont work

Just run it through Olly and tell me where it chokes. Btw no MasmBasic there, it's purest Masm32

Daydreamer, I am still waiting...

[LordAdef]

So it's better not to align a proc???

I thought it should be like that with Align vs unaligned  proc start,because innerloop some opcodes later ends up aligned

Excellent point; hadn't thought of that.

It's not necessarily the proc's entry point that you want aligned:
it's whatever instruction that marks the start of a time-sensitive part of the proc, a loop or whatever.
So the alignment should probably be done inside the proc, not outside.

Yep, interesting how this apparently obvious benchmark brings interesting results.

my _jmp macro aligns the jump caller and the returning one.

The _jmp is align 4, because it was my best "average" results. Aligning 16 got me better results, but not always

The other thing is how different it behaves when we move the target address within the code, or any changes we make in the prog. It seems there's not much to be done without either benchmarking the code all the time or to check the binary.

While writing the test prog, I was moving routines around and sometimes I got "invoke" faster than "call"

quick edit: I assumed NEAR jumps should give me faster results. In my machine it didn't make any difference. But... it should

[NoCforMe]

While writing the test prog, I was moving routines around and sometimes I got "invoke" faster than "call"

You don't seem to understand what invoke actually does.
It's a macro which behaves differently depending on whether the thing being invoked has parameters or not:

• If the subroutine has parameters (and if there is a PROTOtype defined for that routine), invoke pushes the parameters from the "outside in", then does a CALL.
• If the subroutine has no parameters, then invoke simply does a CALL.

So in the latter case there's no difference between invoke and CALL.

invoke is not a processor opcode.

[TimoVJL]

CPU cache suffers long jumps too ?
Also call flush cache ?

[jj2007]

You don't seem to understand what invoke actually does.

I'm sure he does.

[LordAdef]

You don't seem to understand what invoke actually does.

I'm sure he does.

Yep!

[LordAdef]

CPU cache suffers long jumps too ?
Also call flush cache ?

good questions

[NoCforMe]

You don't seem to understand what invoke actually does.

I'm sure he does.

OK, but then why would he suppose there's any difference between INVOKE and CALL?

It's not as if the macro does any alignment or anything like that.

[LordAdef]

You don't seem to understand what invoke actually does.

I'm sure he does.

OK, but then why would he suppose there's any difference between INVOKE and CALL?

It's not as if the macro does any alignment or anything like that.

Because it doesn't matter.
Because I quickly tested pushing arguments, but left without it.
Because, if you read my first post, a new comer may have the misconception that call is always faster than invoke.
Because, you may try to use the test example and compare, if you like, an aligned invoke passing one arg, and try to beat an unaligned call. Whatever.

The point of this thread is alignment

[NoCforMe]

Because, if you read my first post, a new comer may have the misconception that call is always faster than invoke.

I read your first post again; it says nothing at all about call vs. invoke.
However, it's a very good point to get across.