Fast cube root, square root, and reciprocal for x86/SSE CPUs.

notes
All of these methods use SSE instructions or bit twiddling tricks to get a rough
approximation to cube root, square root, or reciprocal, which is then refined with one or
more Newton-Raphson approximation steps.

Each is named to indicate its approximate level of accuracy and a comment describes its
performance relative to the conventional versions.
code
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// These functions approximate reciprocal, square root, and
// cube root to varying degrees of precision substantially
// faster than the straightforward methods 1/x, sqrtf(x),
// and powf( x, 1.0f/3.0f ). All require SSE-enabled CPU & OS.
// Unlike the powf() solution, the cube roots also correctly
// handle negative inputs.

#define REALLY_INLINE __forceinline

// ~34 clocks on Pentium M vs. ~360 for powf
REALLY_INLINE float cuberoot_sse_8bits( float x )
{
    float z;
    static const float three = 3.0f;
    _asm
    {
            mov             eax, x                          // x as bits
            movss   xmm2, x                         // x2: x
            movss   xmm1, three                     // x1: 3
            // Magic floating point cube root done with integer math.
            // The exponent is divided by three in such a way that
            // remainder bits get shoved into the top of the normalized
            // mantissa.
            mov             ecx, eax                        // copy of x
            and             eax, 0x7FFFFFFF         // exponent & mantissa of x in biased-127
            sub     eax, 0x3F800000         // exponent & mantissa of x in 2's comp
            sar     eax, 10                         //
            imul    eax, 341                        // 341/1024 ~= .333
            add             eax, 0x3F800000         // back to biased-127
            and     eax, 0x7FFFFFFF         // remask
            and             ecx, 0x80000000         // original sign and mantissa
            or      eax, ecx                        // masked new exponent, old sign and mantissa
            mov             z, eax                          //

            // use SSE to refine the first approximation
            movss   xmm0, z                         ;// x0: z
            movss   xmm3, xmm0                      ;// x3: z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm0                      ;// x3: z*z
            movss   xmm4, xmm3                      ;// x4: z*z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm1                      ;// x3: 3*z*z
            rcpss   xmm3, xmm3                      ;// x3: ~ 1/(3*z*z)
            mulss   xmm4, xmm0                      ;// x4: z*z*z
            subss   xmm4, xmm2                      ;// x4: z*z*z-x
            mulss   xmm4, xmm3                      ;// x4: (z*z*z-x) / (3*z*z)
            subss   xmm0, xmm4                      ;// x0: z' accurate to within about 0.3%
            movss   z, xmm0
    }

    return z;
}

// ~60 clocks on Pentium M vs. ~360 for powf
REALLY_INLINE float cuberoot_sse_16bits( float x )
{
    float z;
    static const float three = 3.0f;
    _asm
    {
            mov             eax, x                          // x as bits
            movss   xmm2, x                         // x2: x
            movss   xmm1, three                     // x1: 3
            // Magic floating point cube root done with integer math.
            // The exponent is divided by three in such a way that
            // remainder bits get shoved into the top of the normalized
            // mantissa.
            mov             ecx, eax                        // copy of x
            and             eax, 0x7FFFFFFF         // exponent & mantissa of x in biased-127
            sub     eax, 0x3F800000         // exponent & mantissa of x in 2's comp
            sar     eax, 10                         //
            imul    eax, 341                        // 341/1024 ~= .333
            add             eax, 0x3F800000         // back to biased-127
            and     eax, 0x7FFFFFFF         // remask
            and             ecx, 0x80000000         // original sign and mantissa
            or      eax, ecx                        // masked new exponent, old sign and mantissa
            mov             z, eax                          //

            // use SSE to refine the first approximation
            movss   xmm0, z                         ;// x0: z
            movss   xmm3, xmm0                      ;// x3: z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm0                      ;// x3: z*z
            movss   xmm4, xmm3                      ;// x4: z*z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm1                      ;// x3: 3*z*z
            rcpss   xmm3, xmm3                      ;// x3: ~ 1/(3*z*z)
            mulss   xmm4, xmm0                      ;// x4: z*z*z
            subss   xmm4, xmm2                      ;// x4: z*z*z-x
            mulss   xmm4, xmm3                      ;// x4: (z*z*z-x) / (3*z*z)
            subss   xmm0, xmm4                      ;// x0: z' accurate to within about 0.3%

            movss   xmm3, xmm0                      ;// x3: z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm0                      ;// x3: z*z
            movss   xmm4, xmm3                      ;// x4: z*z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm1                      ;// x3: 3*z*z
            rcpss   xmm3, xmm3                      ;// x3: ~ 1/(3*z*z)
            mulss   xmm4, xmm0                      ;// x4: z*z*z
            subss   xmm4, xmm2                      ;// x4: z*z*z-x
            mulss   xmm4, xmm3                      ;// x4: (z*z*z-x) / (3*z*z)
            subss   xmm0, xmm4                      ;// x0: z'' accurate to within about 0.001%

            movss   z, xmm0
    }

    return z;
}

// ~77 clocks on Pentium M vs. ~360 for powf
REALLY_INLINE float cuberoot_sse_22bits( float x )
{
    float z;
    static const float three = 3.0f;
    _asm
    {
            mov             eax, x                          // x as bits
            movss   xmm2, x                         // x2: x
            movss   xmm1, three                     // x1: 3
            // Magic floating point cube root done with integer math.
            // The exponent is divided by three in such a way that
            // remainder bits get shoved into the top of the normalized
            // mantissa.
            mov             ecx, eax                        // copy of x
            and             eax, 0x7FFFFFFF         // exponent & mantissa of x in biased-127
            sub     eax, 0x3F800000         // exponent & mantissa of x in 2's comp
            sar     eax, 10                         //
            imul    eax, 341                        // 341/1024 ~= .333
            add             eax, 0x3F800000         // back to biased-127
            and     eax, 0x7FFFFFFF         // remask
            and             ecx, 0x80000000         // original sign and mantissa
            or      eax, ecx                        // masked new exponent, old sign and mantissa
            mov             z, eax                          //

            // use SSE to refine the first approximation
            movss   xmm0, z                         // x0: z
            movss   xmm3, xmm0                      // x3: z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm0                      // x3: z*z
            movss   xmm4, xmm3                      // x4: z*z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm1                      // x3: 3*z*z
            rcpss   xmm3, xmm3                      // x3: ~ 1/(3*z*z)
            mulss   xmm4, xmm0                      // x4: z*z*z
            subss   xmm4, xmm2                      // x4: z*z*z-x
            mulss   xmm4, xmm3                      // x4: (z*z*z-x) / (3*z*z)
            subss   xmm0, xmm4                      // x0: z' accurate to within about 0.3%

            movss   xmm3, xmm0                      // x3: z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm0                      // x3: z*z
            movss   xmm4, xmm3                      // x4: z*z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm1                      // x3: 3*z*z
            rcpss   xmm3, xmm3                      // x3: ~ 1/(3*z*z)
            mulss   xmm4, xmm0                      // x4: z*z*z
            subss   xmm4, xmm2                      // x4: z*z*z-x
            mulss   xmm4, xmm3                      // x4: (z*z*z-x) / (3*z*z)
            subss   xmm0, xmm4                      // x0: z'' accurate to within about 0.001%

            movss   xmm3, xmm0                      // x3: z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm0                      // x3: z*z
            movss   xmm4, xmm3                      // x4: z*z
            mulss   xmm3, xmm1                      // x3: 3*z*z
            rcpss   xmm3, xmm3                      // x3: ~ 1/(3*z*z)
            mulss   xmm4, xmm0                      // x4: z*z*z
            subss   xmm4, xmm2                      // x4: z*z*z-x
            mulss   xmm4, xmm3                      // x4: (z*z*z-x) / (3*z*z)
            subss   xmm0, xmm4                      // x0: z''' accurate to within about 0.000012%

            movss   z, xmm0
    }

    return z;
}

// ~6 clocks on Pentium M vs. ~24 for single precision sqrtf
REALLY_INLINE float squareroot_sse_11bits( float x )
{
    float z;
    _asm
    {
            rsqrtss xmm0, x
            rcpss   xmm0, xmm0
            movss   z, xmm0                 // z ~= sqrt(x) to 0.038%
    }
    return z;
}

// ~19 clocks on Pentium M vs. ~24 for single precision sqrtf
REALLY_INLINE float squareroot_sse_22bits( float x )
{
    static float half = 0.5f;
    float z;
    _asm
    {
            movss   xmm1, x                 // x1: x
            rsqrtss xmm2, xmm1              // x2: ~1/sqrt(x) = 1/z
            rcpss   xmm0, xmm2              // x0: z == ~sqrt(x) to 0.05%

            movss   xmm4, xmm0              // x4: z
            movss   xmm3, half
            mulss   xmm4, xmm4              // x4: z*z
            mulss   xmm2, xmm3              // x2: 1 / 2z
            subss   xmm4, xmm1              // x4: z*z-x
            mulss   xmm4, xmm2              // x4: (z*z-x)/2z
            subss   xmm0, xmm4              // x0: z' to 0.000015%

            movss   z, xmm0
    }
    return z;
}

// ~12 clocks on Pentium M vs. ~16 for single precision divide
REALLY_INLINE float reciprocal_sse_22bits( float x )
{
    float z;
    _asm
    {
            rcpss   xmm0, x                 // x0: z ~= 1/x
            movss   xmm2, x                 // x2: x
            movss   xmm1, xmm0              // x1: z ~= 1/x
            addss   xmm0, xmm0              // x0: 2z
            mulss   xmm1, xmm1              // x1: z^2
            mulss   xmm1, xmm2              // x1: xz^2
            subss   xmm0, xmm1              // x0: z' ~= 1/x to 0.000012%

            movss   z, xmm0
    }
    return z;
}