Article: ARM Goes 64-bit
By: Exophase (exophase.delete@this.gmail.com), August 16, 2012 2:52 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Kenneth Jonsson (kj.delete@this.localhost.org) on August 16, 2012 2:35 pm wrote:
> I have never developed a compiler, but looking at code generated by GCC for ARM,
> x86_64, MIPS and PPC begs the question: is there really any real benefit in
> having more than 16 GPRs? I cannot really see that the 16GPRs that ARM and
> x86_64 has is a limitation in close to 100% of the functions, a large number of
> the functions uses less than 8 registers. This is also true on PPC and MIPS
> where 32 GPRs are available, most register seem to just sit there
> unused.
>
> More register does increase the cost of switching context, so unused
> register cannot be a good thing.
>
> So what are the benefits of moving to 32
> GPRs on ARMv8 from the current number of 16 (well 14 if one exclude PC and LR)?
In hand-written assembly code I've come across many circumstances where performance would be higher with more than 15 GPRs. Sometimes this is only to accommodate scheduling in the absence of OoO, which shouldn't be the situation for at least the first launching ARMv8 platforms. I don't have information on how well compilers do, but I'm sure ARM has investigated this. Although perhaps more with their compiler than GCC, which even today is producing tangibly higher performance code. It's partially a question of how aggressive inter-function optimization is.
One area where ARM is certain to benefit is CPU emulation. It's much easier to do it when you have substantially more registers than what you're emulating (x86-64 would be one of the most significant considerations), since you then don't have to worry about register allocation at all and can keep more helper variables in registers.
The context-switch overhead seems more like the non-issue. Tell me if I'm mistaken in this, but my perception is that this demand hasn't really gone up over the years, if anything it has gone down (for instance Linux becoming tick-less), while cycles/second has gone up tremendously. I can't imagine needing more than a few thousand context switches a second at the most.
> I have never developed a compiler, but looking at code generated by GCC for ARM,
> x86_64, MIPS and PPC begs the question: is there really any real benefit in
> having more than 16 GPRs? I cannot really see that the 16GPRs that ARM and
> x86_64 has is a limitation in close to 100% of the functions, a large number of
> the functions uses less than 8 registers. This is also true on PPC and MIPS
> where 32 GPRs are available, most register seem to just sit there
> unused.
>
> More register does increase the cost of switching context, so unused
> register cannot be a good thing.
>
> So what are the benefits of moving to 32
> GPRs on ARMv8 from the current number of 16 (well 14 if one exclude PC and LR)?
In hand-written assembly code I've come across many circumstances where performance would be higher with more than 15 GPRs. Sometimes this is only to accommodate scheduling in the absence of OoO, which shouldn't be the situation for at least the first launching ARMv8 platforms. I don't have information on how well compilers do, but I'm sure ARM has investigated this. Although perhaps more with their compiler than GCC, which even today is producing tangibly higher performance code. It's partially a question of how aggressive inter-function optimization is.
One area where ARM is certain to benefit is CPU emulation. It's much easier to do it when you have substantially more registers than what you're emulating (x86-64 would be one of the most significant considerations), since you then don't have to worry about register allocation at all and can keep more helper variables in registers.
The context-switch overhead seems more like the non-issue. Tell me if I'm mistaken in this, but my perception is that this demand hasn't really gone up over the years, if anything it has gone down (for instance Linux becoming tick-less), while cycles/second has gone up tremendously. I can't imagine needing more than a few thousand context switches a second at the most.
Topic | Posted By | Date |
---|---|---|
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 12:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 12:44 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 01:04 AM |
MIPS MT-ASE | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 09:01 AM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 10:08 AM |
MWAIT not specifically MT | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 10:36 AM |
MWAIT not specifically MT | EduardoS | 2012/08/15 03:16 PM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | anonymou5 | 2012/08/14 11:07 AM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | EduardoS | 2012/08/15 03:20 PM |
MIPS MT-ASE | rwessel | 2012/08/14 10:14 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | SHK | 2012/08/14 02:01 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 02:37 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 03:57 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 04:29 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 04:44 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 05:28 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 05:32 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 06:06 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 05:40 AM |
AArch64 select better than cmov | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 06:08 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:12 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 06:25 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 06:48 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | none | 2012/08/14 06:56 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | anon | 2012/08/14 07:07 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 07:27 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | David Kanter | 2012/08/15 01:14 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | Michael S | 2012/08/15 11:41 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | R Byron | 2012/08/17 04:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:54 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 07:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 07:43 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 06:07 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:20 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 06:29 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 07:00 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/08/14 03:43 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 06:53 AM |
OT: Conrad's "Youth" | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 07:20 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 06:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | mpx | 2012/08/14 08:59 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Antti-Ville Tuunainen | 2012/08/14 09:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anonymou5 | 2012/08/14 11:03 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | name99 | 2012/11/17 03:31 PM |
Microarchitecting a counter register | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/17 07:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/08/14 04:21 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | name99 | 2012/11/17 03:40 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/17 04:52 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Doug S | 2012/11/17 05:48 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/11/18 05:40 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/19 07:59 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/19 08:23 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/19 09:31 AM |
Downloading µarch-specific binaries? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/19 11:21 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/19 11:41 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/21 07:44 AM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | VMguy | 2012/11/22 03:21 AM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | David Kanter | 2012/11/22 12:12 PM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 03:50 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 10:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/26 01:24 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/26 03:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/27 11:17 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/28 02:32 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/26 12:16 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/28 12:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 05:53 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/11/28 06:15 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 07:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/11/28 09:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 09:53 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Eugene Nalimov | 2012/11/28 05:58 PM |
Amazing! | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 07:25 PM |
Amazing! (non-italic response) | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 07:25 PM |
Amazing! | EBFE | 2012/11/28 08:20 PM |
Undefined behaviour doubles down | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 09:10 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/28 07:54 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 09:21 PM |
Have you heard of Transmeta? | David Kanter | 2012/11/19 03:47 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/11/19 09:08 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/19 03:40 PM |
Semantic Dictionary Encoding | Ray | 2012/11/19 10:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Rohit | 2012/11/20 04:48 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/20 11:07 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/21 06:41 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/21 10:12 AM |
A JIT example | Mark Roulo | 2012/11/21 10:30 AM |
A JIT example | Wilco | 2012/11/21 07:04 PM |
A JIT example | rwessel | 2012/11/21 09:05 PM |
A JIT example | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 03:53 AM |
A JIT example | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 10:13 AM |
A JIT example | Wilco | 2012/11/23 01:41 PM |
A JIT example | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 02:06 PM |
A JIT example | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 04:09 PM |
A JIT example | Symmetry | 2012/11/26 05:58 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Ray | 2012/11/19 10:27 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 09:11 AM |
v7-M is Thumb-only | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 06:58 AM |
Minor suggested correction | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 08:33 AM |
Minor suggested correction | anon | 2012/08/14 08:57 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Exophase | 2012/08/14 08:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 09:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | jigal | 2012/08/15 01:49 PM |
Correction re ARM and BBC Micro | Paul | 2012/08/14 08:59 PM |
Correction re ARM and BBC Micro | Per Hesselgren | 2012/08/15 03:27 AM |
Memory BW so low | Per Hesselgren | 2012/08/15 03:14 AM |
Memory BW so low | none | 2012/08/15 11:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | dado | 2012/08/15 10:25 AM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/16 02:35 PM |
Number of GPRs | Exophase | 2012/08/16 02:52 PM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 02:41 AM |
Ooops, missing link... | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 02:44 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 06:19 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 08:37 AM |
Brute force seems to work | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 10:08 AM |
Brute force seems to work | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 11:15 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 08:46 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 10:43 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 12:57 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/22 10:17 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/23 04:48 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 06:51 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Wilco | 2012/08/17 02:41 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 04:13 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 10:44 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/22 10:08 PM |
Unified libraries? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 07:49 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/23 08:44 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 05:17 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | anon | 2012/08/23 08:15 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 09:33 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Foo_ | 2012/08/18 12:09 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/18 05:25 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/18 05:32 PM |
Page-related benefit of small pointers | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 08:36 AM |
Number of GPRs | Wilco | 2012/08/17 06:31 AM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 11:54 AM |
Number of GPRs | Exophase | 2012/08/17 12:44 PM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 01:22 PM |
Number of GPRs | Wilco | 2012/08/17 02:53 PM |
What about dynamic utilization? | Exophase | 2012/08/17 09:30 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 10:20 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Exophase | 2012/08/17 11:09 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/18 02:23 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 11:02 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/19 06:07 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 07:26 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/19 10:03 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/20 01:59 AM |
Number of GPRs | David Kanter | 2012/08/17 12:46 PM |
RAT issues as part of reason 1 | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 02:18 PM |
Number of GPRs | name99 | 2012/11/17 06:37 PM |
Large ARFs increase renaming cost | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/17 09:23 PM |
Number of GPRs | David Kanter | 2012/08/16 03:31 PM |
Number of GPRs | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/16 05:17 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/16 06:27 PM |
Oops, Message-ID: aaed6e38-c7bd-467e-ba41-f40cf1020e5e@googlegroups.com (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/16 06:29 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Exophase | 2012/08/16 10:06 PM |
R31 as SP/zero is kind of neat (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 06:23 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | rwessel | 2012/08/17 08:24 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Exophase | 2012/08/17 09:16 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Max | 2012/08/17 04:19 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | name99 | 2012/11/17 07:43 PM |
Number of GPRs | mpx | 2012/08/17 01:11 AM |
Latency and power | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 06:54 AM |
Number of GPRs | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 03:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Steve | 2012/08/17 02:12 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/19 12:42 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Doug S | 2012/08/19 02:02 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Anon | 2012/08/19 07:16 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Steve | 2012/08/30 07:51 AM |
Scalar vs Vector registers | Robert David Graham | 2012/08/19 05:19 PM |
Scalar vs Vector registers | David Kanter | 2012/08/19 05:29 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Baserock ARM servers | 2012/08/21 04:13 PM |
Baserock ARM servers | Sysanon | 2012/08/21 04:14 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/21 06:13 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Anon | 2012/08/21 07:13 PM |
Half-depth advantages? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/21 08:42 PM |
Half-depth advantages? | Anon | 2012/08/22 03:33 PM |
Thanks for the information (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/22 04:04 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | C. Ladisch | 2012/08/23 11:12 AM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Paul | 2012/08/23 03:17 PM |
Excessive pessimism | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 04:08 PM |
Excessive pessimism | David Kanter | 2012/08/23 05:05 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/08/22 07:12 AM |
BTW, Baserock==product, Codethink==company (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/22 08:56 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Reinoud Zandijk | 2012/08/21 11:27 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Robert Pearson | 2021/07/26 09:11 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2021/07/26 11:03 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2021/07/26 11:45 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | dmcq | 2021/07/27 07:36 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Chester | 2021/07/27 01:21 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2021/07/27 10:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2021/07/26 11:04 AM |