在处理器速度以MHz为单位，屏幕尺寸低于100万像素的时代，一个众所周知的更快显示的技巧是展开循环:为屏幕的每个扫描行写操作。它避免了维护循环索引的开销!再加上检测屏幕刷新，它非常有效。 这是C编译器不会做的事情……(虽然通常可以在速度优化和规模优化之间进行选择，但我认为前者使用了一些类似的技巧。)

我知道有些人喜欢用汇编语言编写Windows应用程序。他们声称他们更快(很难证明)和更小(确实如此!)。 显然，虽然这样做很有趣，但可能会浪费时间(当然，学习目的除外!)，特别是对于GUI操作…… 现在，也许某些操作(比如在文件中搜索字符串)可以通过精心编写的汇编代码进行优化。

，问了这个问题，并给出了使用汇编的利弊。

我想说的是，当你比编译器更擅长一组给定的指令时。所以我认为没有通用的答案

在运行时创建机器代码怎么样?

我的兄弟曾经(大约在2000年)通过在运行时生成代码实现了一个非常快速的实时光线跟踪器。我不记得细节了，但有一些主模块是通过对象循环的，然后它准备和执行一些特定于每个对象的机器代码。

然而，随着时间的推移，这种方法被新的图形硬件淘汰，变得毫无用处。

今天，我认为大数据(数百万条记录)上的一些操作，如数据透视表、钻孔、实时计算等，都可以用这种方法进行优化。问题是:这样的努力值得吗?

我已经阅读了所有的答案(超过30个)，并没有找到一个简单的原因:如果你读过并练习过Intel®64和IA-32架构优化参考手册，汇编程序比C更快，所以汇编程序可能更慢的原因是编写这种慢汇编程序的人没有阅读优化手册。

In the good old days of Intel 80286, each instruction was executed at a fixed count of CPU cycles. Still, since Pentium Pro, released in 1995, Intel processors became superscalar, utilizing Complex Pipelining: Out-of-Order Execution & Register Renaming. Before that, on Pentium, produced in 1993, there were U and V pipelines. Therefore, Pentium introduced dual pipelines that could execute two simple instructions at one clock cycle if they didn't depend on one another. However, this was nothing compared with the Out-of-Order Execution & Register Renaming that appeared in Pentium Pro. This approach introduced in Pentium Pro is practically the same nowadays on most recent Intel processors.

Let me explain the Out-of-Order Execution in a few words. The fastest code is where instructions do not depend on previous results, e.g., you should always clear whole registers (by movzx) to remove dependency from previous values of the registers you are working with, so they may be renamed internally by the CPU to allow instruction execute in parallel or in a different order. Or, on some processors, false dependency may exist that may also slow things down, like false dependency on Pentium 4 for inc/dec, so you may wish to use add eax, 1 instead or inc eax to remove dependency on the previous state of the flags.

如果时间允许，您可以阅读更多无序执行和注册重命名。因特网上有大量的信息。

There are also many other essential issues like branch prediction, number of load and store units, number of gates that execute micro-ops, memory cache coherence protocols, etc., but the crucial thing to consider is the Out-of-Order Execution. Most people are simply not aware of the Out-of-Order Execution. Therefore, they write their assembly programs like for 80286, expecting their instructions will take a fixed time to execute regardless of the context. At the same time, C compilers are aware of the Out-of-Order Execution and generate the code correctly. That's why the code of such uninformed people is slower, but if you become knowledgeable, your code will be faster.

除了乱序执行之外，还有很多优化技巧和技巧。请阅读上面提到的优化手册:-)

However, assembly language has its own drawbacks when it comes to optimization. According to Peter Cordes (see the comment below), some of the optimizations compilers do would be unmaintainable for large code-bases in hand-written assembly. For example, suppose you write in assembly. In that case, you need to completely change an inline function (an assembly macro) when it inlines into a function that calls it with some arguments being constants. At the same time, a C compiler makes its job a lot simpler—and inlining the same code in different ways into different call sites. There is a limit to what you can do with assembly macros. So to get the same benefit, you'd have to manually optimize the same logic in each place to match the constants and available registers you have.

在我的工作中，有三个原因让我了解和使用组装。按重要性排序:

Debugging - I often get library code that has bugs or incomplete documentation. I figure out what it's doing by stepping in at the assembly level. I have to do this about once a week. I also use it as a tool to debug problems in which my eyes don't spot the idiomatic error in C/C++/C#. Looking at the assembly gets past that. Optimizing - the compiler does fairly well in optimizing, but I play in a different ballpark than most. I write image processing code that usually starts with code that looks like this: for (int y=0; y < imageHeight; y++) { for (int x=0; x < imageWidth; x++) { // do something } } the "do something part" typically happens on the order of several million times (ie, between 3 and 30). By scraping cycles in that "do something" phase, the performance gains are hugely magnified. I don't usually start there - I usually start by writing the code to work first, then do my best to refactor the C to be naturally better (better algorithm, less load in the loop etc). I usually need to read assembly to see what's going on and rarely need to write it. I do this maybe every two or three months. doing something the language won't let me. These include - getting the processor architecture and specific processor features, accessing flags not in the CPU (man, I really wish C gave you access to the carry flag), etc. I do this maybe once a year or two years.