It really depends on what you are doing. I do embedded work on a 40 MIPs PIC dsp. When i want to smooth A/D readings I collect 32 by adding them each time an in

It really depends on what you are doing. I do embedded work on a 40 MIPs PIC dsp. When i want to smooth A/D readings I collect 32 by adding them each time an interrupt is called, and when i reach a count of 32 I use: smooth_value =sum >>5 This is a case where shifting is worthwhile.