Article: ARM Goes 64-bit
By: Paul A. Clayton (paaronclayton.delete@this.gmail.com), August 17, 2012 9:43 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on August 17, 2012 8:46 am wrote:
[snip]
> That seems plausible *if* you just take a big C or C++
> program and naively recompile it for 64bits with minimal
> changes to the source code. Because then suddenly all
> pointers change from 4byte with 4byte alignment, to 8byte
> with 8byte alignment (and in C++, any object with virtual
> methods gets an 8byte header with 8byte alignment, for the
> vtable pointer). If you haven't been careful, that makes
> many data structures 1.5x - 2x bigger, so then your cache
> miss rates go up, making it slower.
Getting software to be recompiled seems difficult enough. (I think it would be nice if C/C++ allowed the compiler to rearrange internal data structures for the sake of optimization--memory use or performance.)
> You can do better though, if you're prepared to tune your
> code carefully, e.g. storing only 40 bits for pointers, or
> shifting them 2-3 bit to squeeze into a 32bit field. If
> you optimize your critical data structures, the increase in
> data size can be kept to ~ 1.1x (rather than > 1.5x), and
> then the performance hit from the larger data structures is
> probably only 2% or so.
Without special support in the ISA, pointer compression will
cost some extra operations. (One could imagine an ISA that would perform partial loads for unaligned accesses--a bit like the early ARM processors except with sign or zero extension rather than rotation. This would make loading such pointers "free".) In addition, the programming language is not likely to support such easily. (With C++, one could presumably implement compressed pointers in much the same way one can implement smart pointers.)
> This all depends on what kind of app it is, of course - my
> experience is with a big EDA app, in C++, with 100s of
> different classes, most of which were at least 50% pointers,
> so keeping pointers small was a big deal.
A more likely scenario is combining fat pointers and compressed pointers, so one still has a 64-bit pointer but it includes some type (or other) metadata. (Some Java implementations do this. AArch64's optional ignoring of the 8 MSbits might be targeted to such uses.)
(I like pointer compression, but I am biased in favor of microoptimizations. Practicality seems to favor ordinary pointers in a flat memory space.)
[snip]
> That seems plausible *if* you just take a big C or C++
> program and naively recompile it for 64bits with minimal
> changes to the source code. Because then suddenly all
> pointers change from 4byte with 4byte alignment, to 8byte
> with 8byte alignment (and in C++, any object with virtual
> methods gets an 8byte header with 8byte alignment, for the
> vtable pointer). If you haven't been careful, that makes
> many data structures 1.5x - 2x bigger, so then your cache
> miss rates go up, making it slower.
Getting software to be recompiled seems difficult enough. (I think it would be nice if C/C++ allowed the compiler to rearrange internal data structures for the sake of optimization--memory use or performance.)
> You can do better though, if you're prepared to tune your
> code carefully, e.g. storing only 40 bits for pointers, or
> shifting them 2-3 bit to squeeze into a 32bit field. If
> you optimize your critical data structures, the increase in
> data size can be kept to ~ 1.1x (rather than > 1.5x), and
> then the performance hit from the larger data structures is
> probably only 2% or so.
Without special support in the ISA, pointer compression will
cost some extra operations. (One could imagine an ISA that would perform partial loads for unaligned accesses--a bit like the early ARM processors except with sign or zero extension rather than rotation. This would make loading such pointers "free".) In addition, the programming language is not likely to support such easily. (With C++, one could presumably implement compressed pointers in much the same way one can implement smart pointers.)
> This all depends on what kind of app it is, of course - my
> experience is with a big EDA app, in C++, with 100s of
> different classes, most of which were at least 50% pointers,
> so keeping pointers small was a big deal.
A more likely scenario is combining fat pointers and compressed pointers, so one still has a 64-bit pointer but it includes some type (or other) metadata. (Some Java implementations do this. AArch64's optional ignoring of the 8 MSbits might be targeted to such uses.)
(I like pointer compression, but I am biased in favor of microoptimizations. Practicality seems to favor ordinary pointers in a flat memory space.)
Topic | Posted By | Date |
---|---|---|
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/13 11:04 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/13 11:44 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 12:04 AM |
MIPS MT-ASE | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 08:01 AM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 09:08 AM |
MWAIT not specifically MT | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 09:36 AM |
MWAIT not specifically MT | EduardoS | 2012/08/15 02:16 PM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | anonymou5 | 2012/08/14 10:07 AM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | EduardoS | 2012/08/15 02:20 PM |
MIPS MT-ASE | rwessel | 2012/08/14 09:14 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | SHK | 2012/08/14 01:01 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 01:37 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 02:57 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 03:29 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 03:44 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 04:28 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 04:32 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 05:06 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 04:40 AM |
AArch64 select better than cmov | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 05:08 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 05:12 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 05:25 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 05:48 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | none | 2012/08/14 05:56 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | anon | 2012/08/14 06:07 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 06:27 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | David Kanter | 2012/08/15 12:14 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | Michael S | 2012/08/15 10:41 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | R Byron | 2012/08/17 03:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 05:54 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 06:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:43 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 05:07 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 05:20 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 05:29 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:00 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/08/14 02:43 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 05:53 AM |
OT: Conrad's "Youth" | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 06:20 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 05:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | mpx | 2012/08/14 07:59 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Antti-Ville Tuunainen | 2012/08/14 08:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anonymou5 | 2012/08/14 10:03 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | name99 | 2012/11/17 02:31 PM |
Microarchitecting a counter register | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/17 06:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/08/14 03:21 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | name99 | 2012/11/17 02:40 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/17 03:52 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Doug S | 2012/11/17 04:48 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/11/18 04:40 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/19 06:59 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/19 07:23 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/19 08:31 AM |
Downloading µarch-specific binaries? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/19 10:21 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/19 10:41 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/21 06:44 AM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | VMguy | 2012/11/22 02:21 AM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | David Kanter | 2012/11/22 11:12 AM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 02:50 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 09:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/26 12:24 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/26 02:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/27 10:17 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/28 01:32 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/26 11:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/27 11:33 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 04:53 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/11/28 05:15 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 06:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/11/28 08:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 08:53 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Eugene Nalimov | 2012/11/28 04:58 PM |
Amazing! | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 06:25 PM |
Amazing! (non-italic response) | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 06:25 PM |
Amazing! | EBFE | 2012/11/28 07:20 PM |
Undefined behaviour doubles down | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 08:10 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/28 06:54 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 08:21 PM |
Have you heard of Transmeta? | David Kanter | 2012/11/19 02:47 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/11/19 08:08 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/19 02:40 PM |
Semantic Dictionary Encoding | Ray | 2012/11/19 09:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Rohit | 2012/11/20 03:48 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/20 10:07 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/21 05:41 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/21 09:12 AM |
A JIT example | Mark Roulo | 2012/11/21 09:30 AM |
A JIT example | Wilco | 2012/11/21 06:04 PM |
A JIT example | rwessel | 2012/11/21 08:05 PM |
A JIT example | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 02:53 AM |
A JIT example | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 09:13 AM |
A JIT example | Wilco | 2012/11/23 12:41 PM |
A JIT example | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 01:06 PM |
A JIT example | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 03:09 PM |
A JIT example | Symmetry | 2012/11/26 04:58 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Ray | 2012/11/19 09:27 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 08:11 AM |
v7-M is Thumb-only | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 05:58 AM |
Minor suggested correction | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 07:33 AM |
Minor suggested correction | anon | 2012/08/14 07:57 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Exophase | 2012/08/14 07:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 08:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | jigal | 2012/08/15 12:49 PM |
Correction re ARM and BBC Micro | Paul | 2012/08/14 07:59 PM |
Correction re ARM and BBC Micro | Per Hesselgren | 2012/08/15 02:27 AM |
Memory BW so low | Per Hesselgren | 2012/08/15 02:14 AM |
Memory BW so low | none | 2012/08/15 10:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | dado | 2012/08/15 09:25 AM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/16 01:35 PM |
Number of GPRs | Exophase | 2012/08/16 01:52 PM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 01:41 AM |
Ooops, missing link... | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 01:44 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 05:19 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 07:37 AM |
Brute force seems to work | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 09:08 AM |
Brute force seems to work | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 10:15 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 07:46 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 09:43 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 11:57 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/22 09:17 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/23 03:48 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 05:51 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Wilco | 2012/08/17 01:41 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 03:13 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 09:44 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/22 09:08 PM |
Unified libraries? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 06:49 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/23 07:44 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 04:17 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | anon | 2012/08/23 07:15 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 08:33 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Foo_ | 2012/08/18 11:09 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/18 04:25 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/18 04:32 PM |
Page-related benefit of small pointers | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 07:36 AM |
Number of GPRs | Wilco | 2012/08/17 05:31 AM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 10:54 AM |
Number of GPRs | Exophase | 2012/08/17 11:44 AM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 12:22 PM |
Number of GPRs | Wilco | 2012/08/17 01:53 PM |
What about dynamic utilization? | Exophase | 2012/08/17 08:30 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 09:20 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Exophase | 2012/08/17 10:09 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/18 01:23 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 10:02 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/19 05:07 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 06:26 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/19 09:03 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/20 12:59 AM |
Number of GPRs | David Kanter | 2012/08/17 11:46 AM |
RAT issues as part of reason 1 | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 01:18 PM |
Number of GPRs | name99 | 2012/11/17 05:37 PM |
Large ARFs increase renaming cost | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/17 08:23 PM |
Number of GPRs | David Kanter | 2012/08/16 02:31 PM |
Number of GPRs | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/16 04:17 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/16 05:27 PM |
Oops, Message-ID: aaed6e38-c7bd-467e-ba41-f40cf1020e5e@googlegroups.com (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/16 05:29 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Exophase | 2012/08/16 09:06 PM |
R31 as SP/zero is kind of neat (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 05:23 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | rwessel | 2012/08/17 07:24 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Exophase | 2012/08/17 08:16 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Max | 2012/08/17 03:19 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | name99 | 2012/11/17 06:43 PM |
Number of GPRs | mpx | 2012/08/17 12:11 AM |
Latency and power | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 05:54 AM |
Number of GPRs | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 02:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Steve | 2012/08/17 01:12 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/19 11:42 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Doug S | 2012/08/19 01:02 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Anon | 2012/08/19 06:16 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Steve | 2012/08/30 06:51 AM |
Scalar vs Vector registers | Robert David Graham | 2012/08/19 04:19 PM |
Scalar vs Vector registers | David Kanter | 2012/08/19 04:29 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Baserock ARM servers | 2012/08/21 03:13 PM |
Baserock ARM servers | Sysanon | 2012/08/21 03:14 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/21 05:13 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Anon | 2012/08/21 06:13 PM |
Half-depth advantages? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/21 07:42 PM |
Half-depth advantages? | Anon | 2012/08/22 02:33 PM |
Thanks for the information (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/22 03:04 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | C. Ladisch | 2012/08/23 10:12 AM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Paul | 2012/08/23 02:17 PM |
Excessive pessimism | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 03:08 PM |
Excessive pessimism | David Kanter | 2012/08/23 04:05 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/08/22 06:12 AM |
BTW, Baserock==product, Codethink==company (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/22 07:56 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Reinoud Zandijk | 2012/08/21 10:27 PM |