Faster Math ?

[Laurent Bourgès]

Hi Paul,

Thank you so much for this complete summary !

I will still perform some benchmarks and could port acos native code into
java code as it is used by marlin.

Anyway I will backport the Cbrt java code into Marlin @ github for JDK8
users (GPL v2).

Thanks,
Laurent

Le 9 nov. 2017 18:19, "Paul Sandoz" <paul.sandoz at oracle.com> a écrit :

> Hi Laurent,
>
> A Java method is a candidate for intrinsification if it is annotated with
> @HotSpotIntrinsicCandidate. When running Java code you can also use the
> HotSpot flags -XX:+PrintCompilarion -XX:+PrintInlining to show methods that
> are intrinsic (JIT watch, as mentioned, is also excellent in this regard).
>
> I recommend cloning OpenJDK and browsing the source.
>
> Some of the math functions are intrinsic in the interpreter and all the
> runtime compilers to ensure consistent results across interpretation and
> compilation.
>
> Work was done by Intel to improve many of the math functions. See:
>
>   Update for x86 sin and cos in the math lib
>   https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8143353
>
>   Update for x86 pow in the math lib
>   https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8145688
>
>   (From these you can track related issues.)
>
> Other Math functions are not intrinsic like cbrt (non-native) and acos
> (native). There is ongoing work to turn native implementations into Java
> implementations (i don’t know if there would be any follow up on
> intrinsification).
>
>   https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8134780
>   https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8171407
>
> Joe knows more.
>
> —
>
> As part of the Vector API effort we will likely need to investigate the
> support for less accurate but faster math functions. It’s too early to tell
> if something like a FastMath class will pop out of that, but FWIW i am
> sympathetic to that :-)
>
> I liked this tweet:
>
> https://twitter.com/FioraAeterna/status/926150700836405248
>
>   life as a gpu compiler dev is basically just fielding repeated
> complaints that
>   "fast math" isn't precise and "precise math" isn't fast
>
> as an indication of what we could be getting into :-)
>
> Paul.
>
> > On 9 Nov 2017, at 01:00, Laurent Bourgès <bourges.laurent at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > The Marlin renderer (JEP265) uses few Math functions: sqrt, cbrt, acos...
> >
> > Could you check if the current JDK uses C2 intrinsics or libfdm (native /
> > JNI overhead?) and tell me if such functions are already highly optimized
> > in jdk9 or 10 ?
> >
> > Some people have implemented their own fast Math like Apache Commons Math
> > or JaFaMa libraries that are 10x faster for acos / cbrt.
> >
> > I wonder if I should implement my own cbrt function (cubics) in pure java
> > as I do not need the highest accuracy but SPEED.
> >
> > Would it sound possible to have a JDK FastMath public API (lots faster
> but
> > less accurate?)
> >
> > Do you know if recent CPU (intel?) have dedicated instructions for such
> > math operations ?
> > Why not use it instead?
> > Maybe that's part of the new Vectorization API (panama) ?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Laurent Bourges
>
>