{ From: ae723@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Brent Beach) >>> I am looking for a *fast* routine that can move more than 64k on any >>> 80x86. >> A loop using movsb is limited to 64K, but movsw can move 128K at a time. >> 2 movsb loops can move 128K. 3 can do 196K, see where I'm going? > >MOVSW cannot move more than 64k. It is limited to 64k by the segmented >architecture. So, to move more than 64k, several MOVSW are necessary. My >problem is to find a routine in which this is done in a clever way. In fact, >I know that I would not come up with a clever coding, so I hope that an asm >guru somewhere has already done it... You can never move 64KB in a single REP MOVSx instruction. First, the MOVSx instructions only update the offsets, not the segment registers, so 64KB is a maximu. Second, you run into problems when the offset is $FFFF. Third, you can move even less if the original addresses do not both have offset 0. To handle all cases, you should try for moving a little less. The following moves only 63KB. You could move 64K-16 bytes. I tested this routine with the longtype array upperbound 16 (it works with any multiple of 16). By using a fast move for 63KB you gain almost all the speed you can; it is probably not worth writing the glue code in ASM. The speed gain over the builtin MOVE procedure is around 38% on my machine (486/33). A test program ran for 2.58 seconds with ASM, 4.17 seconds with MOVE. } procedure movelong( fromp : pointer; top : pointer; len : longint); {-------- long mover - assumes from and to do not overlap (to not in from) } type longtype = array[1 .. 63 * 1024] of char; longtypeptr = ^ longtype; ptrrec = record ofs, seg : word; end; const longtypelen = sizeof(longtype); begin { fix the pointers: offsets between 0 and 15 } inc(ptrrec(fromp).seg, ptrrec(fromp).ofs div 16); ptrrec(fromp).ofs := ptrrec(fromp).ofs and 15; inc(ptrrec(top).seg, ptrrec(top).ofs div 16); ptrrec(top).ofs := ptrrec(top).ofs and 15; { move pieces } while len > sizeof(longtype) do begin { faster than: move(fromp^, top^, sizeof(longtype)); } asm push ds lds si,fromp les di,top mov cx,(longtypelen / 2) cld rep movsw pop ds end; dec(len, sizeof(longtype)); inc(ptrrec(fromp).seg, sizeof(longtype) div 16); inc(ptrrec(top).seg, sizeof(longtype) div 16); end; if len <> 0 then { faster than: move(fromp^, top^, len); } asm push ds lds si,fromp les di,top mov cx,word(len) shr cx, 1 cld jnc @wordmove movsb @wordmove: rep movsw pop ds end; end;