// So far in Ziglings, we've seen how for loops can be used to // repeat calculations across an array in several ways. // // For loops are generally great for this kind of task, but // sometimes they don't fully utilize the capabilities of the // CPU. // // Most modern CPUs can execute instructions in which SEVERAL // calculations are performed WITHIN registers at the SAME TIME. // These are known as "single instruction, multiple data" (SIMD) // instructions. SIMD instructions can make code significantly // more performant. // // To see why, imagine we have a program in which we take the // square root of four (changing) f32 floats. // // A simple compiler would take the program and produce machine code // which calculates each square root sequentially. Most registers on // modern CPUs have 64 bits, so we could imagine that each float moves // into a 64-bit register, and the following happens four times: // // 32 bits 32 bits // +-------------------+ // register | 0 | x | // +-------------------+ // // | // [SQRT instruction] // V // // +-------------------+ // | 0 | sqrt(x) | // +-------------------+ // // Notice that half of the register contains blank data to which // nothing happened. What a waste! What if we were able to use // that space instead? This is the idea at the core of SIMD. // // Most modern CPUs contain specialized registers with at least 128 bits // for performing SIMD instructions. On a machine with 128-bit SIMD // registers, a smart compiler would probably NOT issue four sqrt // instructions as above, but instead pack the floats into a single // 128-bit register, then execute a single "packed" sqrt // instruction to do ALL the square root calculations at once. // // For example: // // // 32 bits 32 bits 32 bits 32 bits // +---------------------------------------+ // register | 4.0 | 9.0 | 25.0 | 49.0 | // +---------------------------------------+ // // | // [SIMD SQRT instruction] // V // // +---------------------------------------+ // register | 2.0 | 3.0 | 5.0 | 7.0 | // +---------------------------------------+ // // Pretty cool, right? // // Code with SIMD instructions is usually more performant than code // without SIMD instructions. Zig cares a lot about performance, // so it has built-in support for SIMD! It has a data structure that // directly supports SIMD instructions: // // +-----------+ // | Vectors | // +-----------+ // // Operations performed on vectors in Zig will be done in parallel using // SIMD instructions, whenever possible. // // Defining vectors in Zig is straightforwards. No library import is needed. const v1 = @Vector(3, i32){ 1, 10, 100 }; const v2 = @Vector(3, f32){ 2.0, 3.0, 5.0 }; // Vectors support the same builtin operators as their underlying base types. const v3 = v1 + v1; // { 2, 20, 200}; const v4 = v2 * v2; // { 4.0, 9.0, 25.0}; // Intrinsics that apply to base types usually extend to vectors. const v5: @Vector(3, f32) = @floatFromInt(v3); // { 2.0, 20.0, 200.0} const v6 = v4 - v5; // { 2.0, -11.0, -175.0} const v7 = @abs(v6); // { 2.0, 11.0, 175.0} // We can make constant vectors, and reduce vectors. const v8: @Vector(4, u8) = @splat(2); // { 2, 2, 2, 2} const v8_sum = @reduce(.Add, v8); // 8 const v8_min = @reduce(.Min, v8); // 2 // Fixed-length arrays can be automatically assigned to vectors (and vice-versa). const single_digit_primes = [4]i8{ 2, 3, 5, 7 }; const prime_vector: @Vector(4, i8) = single_digit_primes; // Now let's use vectors to simplify and optimize some code! // // Ewa is writing a program in which they frequently want to compare // two lists of four f32s. Ewa expects the lists to be similar, and // wants to determine the largest pairwise difference between the lists. // // Ewa wrote the following function to figure this out. fn calcMaxPairwiseDiffOld(list1: [4]f32, list2: [4]f32) f32 { var max_diff: f32 = 0; for (list1, list2) |n1, n2| { const abs_diff = @abs(n1 - n2); if (abs_diff > max_diff) { max_diff = abs_diff; } } return max_diff; } // Ewa heard about vectors in Zig, and started writing a new vector // version of the function, but has got stuck! // // Help Ewa finish the vector version! The examples above should help. const Vec4 = @Vector(4, f32); fn calcMaxPairwiseDiffNew(a: Vec4, b: Vec4) f32 { const abs_diff_vec = ???; const max_diff = @reduce(???, abs_diff_vec); return max_diff; } // Quite the simplification! We could even write the function in one line // and it would still be readable. // // Since the entire function is now expressed in terms of vector operations, // the Zig compiler will easily be able to compile it down to machine code // which utilizes the all-powerful SIMD instructions and does a lot of the // computation in parallel. const std = @import("std"); const print = std.debug.print; pub fn main() void { const l1 = [4]f32{ 3.141, 2.718, 0.577, 1.000 }; const l2 = [4]f32{ 3.154, 2.707, 0.591, 0.993 }; const mpd_old = calcMaxPairwiseDiffOld(l1, l2); const mpd_new = calcMaxPairwiseDiffNew(l1, l2); print("Max difference (old fn): {d: >5.3}\n", .{mpd_old}); print("Max difference (new fn): {d: >5.3}\n", .{mpd_new}); }