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It is common knowledge that division takes many more clock cycles to compute than multiplication. (Refer to the discussion here: Floating point division vs floating point multiplication.)

I already use x * 0.5 instead of x / 2 and x * 0.125 instead of x / 8 in my C++ code, but I was wondering how far I should take this.

For decimals that recur when inverted (ie. 1 / num is a recurring decimal), I use division instead of multiplication (example x / 2.2 instead of x * 0.45454545454).

My question is: In loops that iterate a considerably large number of times, should I replace divisors with their recurring multiplicative counterparts (ie. x * 0.45454545454 instead of x / 2.2), or will this bring an even greater loss of precision?

Edit: I did some profiling, I turned on full optimization in Visual Studio, used the Windows QueryPerformanceCounter() function to get profiling results.

int main() {
    init();
    int x;
    float value = 100002030.0;
    start();
    for (x = 0; x < 100000000; x++)
        value /= 2.2;
    printf("Div: %fms, value: %f", getElapsedMilliseconds(), value);
    value = 100002030.0;
    restart();
    for (x = 0; x < 100000000; x++)
        value *= 0.45454545454;
    printf("\nMult: %fms, value: %f", getElapsedMilliseconds(), value);
    scanf_s("");
}

The results are: Div: 426.907185ms, value: 0.000000 Mult: 289.616415ms, value: 0.000000

Division took almost twice as long as multiplication, even with optimizations. Performance benefits are guaranteed, but will they reduce precision?

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MathuSum Mut
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  • I would be surprised if this was the bottleneck in the code. Have you tried profiling it? – Buddy Feb 29 '16 at 00:03
  • You will lose some precision. This is a really minor optimization if it helps you at all. – NickLamp Feb 29 '16 at 00:09
  • Division times fluctuate with the actual values used, and maybe multiply does too, so for a fair comparison you should start `value` the same for both loops. – Mark Ransom Feb 29 '16 at 00:57
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    Evern without any context, a compiler can replace either one of your loops with some conditionals on infinities, NaNs, and negative numbers followed by a simple `value = 0.0f;`. – tmyklebu Feb 29 '16 at 01:16

2 Answers2

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For decimals that recur when inverted (ie. 1 / num is a recurring decimal), I use division instead of multiplication (example x / 2.2 instead of x * 0.45454545454).

It is also common knowledge that 22/10 is not representable exactly in binary floating-point, so all you are achieving, instead of multiplying by a slightly inaccurate value, is dividing by a slightly inaccurate value.

In fact, if the intent is to divide by 22/10 or some other real value that isn't necessarily exactly representable in binary floating-point, then half the times, the multiplication is more accurate than the division, because it happens by coincidence that the relative error for 1/X is less than the relative error for X.

Another remark is that your micro-benchmark runs into subnormal numbers, where the timings are not representative of timings for the usual operations on normal floating-point numbers, and after a short while, value is zero, which again means that the timings are not representative of the reality of multiplying and dividing normal numbers. And as Mark Ransom says, you should at least make the operands the same for both measurements: as currently written all the multiplications take a zero operand and result in zero. Also since 2.2 and 0.45454545454 both have type double, your benchmark is measuring double-precision multiplication and division, and if you are willing to implement a single-precision division by a double-precision multiplication, this needs not involve any loss of accuracy (but you would have to provide more digits for 1/2.2).

But don't let yourself be fooled into trying to fix the micro-benchmark. You don't need it, because there is no trade-off when X is no more exactly representable than 1/X. There is no reason not to use multiplication.

Note: you should explicitly multiply by 1 / X because since the two operations / X and * (1 / X) are very slightly different, the compiler is not able to do the replacement itself. On the other hand you don't need to replace / 2 by * 0.5 because any compiler worth its salt should do that for you.

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Pascal Cuoq
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You will get different answers when multiplying by a reciprocal versus dividing, but in practice it typically does not matter, and the performance gain is worthwhile. At most, the error will be 1 ULP for reciprocal multiplication versus ½ ULP for division. But do

a = b * (1.f / 7.f);

rather than

a = b * 0.142857f;

because the former will generate the most accurate (½ ULP) representation for 1/7.

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