4 ms·
I know I'm being stupid somehow, but why isn't 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 a good enough 9-byte NOP? It's not like a modern CPU is going to sp
by 13of40 10y ago
I know I'm being stupid somehow, but why isn't 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 0x90 a good enough 9-byte NOP? It's not like a modern CPU is going to spend a cycle individually fetching and pondering over every 0x90...
- phire 10y agoModern intel CPUs can decide 4 instructions per cycle. 9 single byte nops in a row would therefore take 3 cycles (though the last cycle will overlap with upto 3 more instructions.) A multibyte nop counts as one instruction, taking just one cycle to decode, and leaving room for upto 3 more instructions to decode that cycle.
- 13of40 10y agoUpvoted - thank you for the answer. However, I feel I can't get by without empirically testing it in the morning...