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Index > Windows > Register preservation in threads

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r22



Joined: 27 Dec 2004
Posts: 805
r22 03 Nov 2006, 02:30
I have a heavily optimized worker thread for a Win64 program and while preserving the registers is not much overhead at all I was wondering if it is really necessary.

You preserve registers inside of calls that your program makes or inside of procedures of a DLL but do you need to inside of a thread procedure.

The thread has it's own context so destroying every register (r0-r15 and xmm0-xmm15) shouldn't affect anything else ... am I right in assuming this?
Post 03 Nov 2006, 02:30
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Goplat



Joined: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 181
Goplat 03 Nov 2006, 03:10
Thread procedures don't need to save the registers, but if you're worried about that overhead you might want to consider the time it takes to create and destroy a thread, which is likely far more.
Post 03 Nov 2006, 03:10
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r22



Joined: 27 Dec 2004
Posts: 805
r22 03 Nov 2006, 04:01
Thanks thats what I figured.

This was more of a programming standard and convention question than an optimization question.
Quote:

while preserving the registers is not much overhead at all I was wondering if it is really necessary.


Although avoiding
Code:
push rbp rbx rsi rdi r12 r13 r14 r15
movdqa [rsp+??],xmm6 - xmm15
...
movdqa xmm6 - xmm15, [rsp+??]
pop r15 r14 r13 r12 rdi rsi rbx rbp
    

Could be considered a significant 'size' optimization.
Post 03 Nov 2006, 04:01
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Maverick



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 251
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Maverick 03 Nov 2006, 07:03
Looks like the 680x0, with the difference that it did it in hardware Very Happy
Post 03 Nov 2006, 07:03
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f0dder



Joined: 19 Feb 2004
Posts: 3175
Location: Denmark
f0dder 03 Nov 2006, 08:18
Dunno if you need register preservation in the thread. If you "ret" you might - no way to tell whether your code would break on a future service pack. If you "call ExitThread" you probably don't, but perhaps that's more overhead than preservation + ret.
Post 03 Nov 2006, 08:18
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