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Forums > C64 Coding > Timing Challenge
2017-04-28 12:12
TWW

Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 541
Timing Challenge

Hello everyone. Figured I'd give you a small challenge before the weekend in terms of making a timing delay routine with the least amount of bytes and without destroying any registers for the following amounts of cycles:

26 cycles delay:
    pha         // 3
    pha         // 3
    pha         // 3
    nop         // 2
    bit $00     // 3
    pla         // 4
    pla         // 4
    pla         // 4 <- 26 cycles | 9 bytes


27 cycles delay:
    pha         // 3
    pha         // 3
    pha         // 3
    nop         // 2
    nop         // 2
    nop         // 2
    pla         // 4
    pla         // 4
    pla         // 4 <- 27 cycles | 9 bytes


31 cycles delay:
    pha             // 3
    lda #%00001000  // 2
    lsr             // 2 2 2 2
    bcc *-1         // 3 3 3 2
    bit $00         //       3
    pla             //       4 <- 31 cycles | 9 bytes


32 cycles delay:
    pha             // 3
    lda #%00001000  // 2
    lsr             // 2 2 2 2
    bcc *-1         // 3 3 3 2
    nop             //       2
    nop             //       2
    pla             //       4 <- 32 cycles | 9 bytes


31 cycles delay:
    pha             // 3
    lda #%00001000  // 2
    lsr             // 2 2 2 2
    bcc *-1         // 3 3 3 2
    nop             //       2
    nop             //       2
    nop             //       2
    pla             //       4 <- 34 cycles | 10 bytes


I have posted my solutions for reference and hope to see creative (hehe got it?) solutions ;-) Have a nice weekend^^
 
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2017-05-03 14:09
HCL

Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 716
It is somewhat unclear what the challenge really is.. except for wasting cycles in different ways :)
2017-05-04 07:52
Pex Mahoney Tufvesson

Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 50
I would use the REU for doing nothing. At program init, write #0 to $df08, then assume number of (cycles-10) we want to waste in accumulator:

sta $df07
lda #$b0
sta $df01

Done! Anything between approximately 10 - 265 cycles wasted, in 8 bytes of code.

@HCL, the real challenge is to make a demo for X'2018. :)
2017-05-04 08:58
ChristopherJam

Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Some shorter delays..
; minimal bytes, no IOPS
; preserves a,x,y,sp
; may clobber stack and flags

; 2 cycles (1 byte)
    nop

; 3 cycles (2 bytes)
    bit 3

; 4 cycles (2 bytes)
    nop
    nop

; 5 cycles (3 bytes)
    nop
    bit 3

; 6 cycles (3 bytes)
    nop
    nop
    nop

; 7 cycles (2 bytes)
    pha
    pla

; 8 cycles (4 bytes)
    nop
    nop
    nop
    nop

; 9 cycles (3 bytes)
    pha
    nop
    pla

;10 cycles (4 bytes)
    pha
    bit 3
    pla

;11 cycles (4 bytes)
    pha
    nop
    nop
    pla

;12 cycles (5 bytes)
    pha
    nop
    bit 3
    pla

;13 cycles (5 bytes)
    pha
    nop
    nop
    nop
    pla

;14 cycles (4 bytes)
    pha
    pha
    pla
    pla

2017-05-04 12:10
MagerValp

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1055
You can replace three nops with cmp ($00,x) and save a byte.
2017-05-04 12:32
JackAsser

Registered: Jun 2002
Posts: 1987
Quote: You can replace three nops with cmp ($00,x) and save a byte.

Same goes for the 5c delay with nop+bit => cmp ($00),y
2017-05-04 13:25
MagerValp

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1055
Not for any Y though, it's 6 cycles on page crossing. If you can sacrifice a zp address you can use INC/DEC zp instead.
2017-05-04 14:28
ChristopherJam

Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Quote: You can replace three nops with cmp ($00,x) and save a byte.

Oh, good point. For some reason I was only considering BIT, which doesn't have anywhere near as many addressing modes.
2017-05-05 10:02
Kruthers

Registered: Jul 2016
Posts: 21
Slight tangent, but this thread reminds me of the timing hell I was in working on Sidistic. I had to constantly adjust timing all over the place, which would cause code to adjust and cross pages, changing timing.... it was driving me nuts.

So I wrote a macro that would always use 8 bytes to burn any amount of cycles (except 2 or 4, grrr!) Always wondered if that would be useful to anyone else, though it needs to trash a register and/or a ZP location for some amounts of delay.

But what still nags me: is there some way to burn 4 cycles in 8 bytes that I missed? Obviously, without using page crossing...
2017-05-05 11:18
Frantic

Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1626
Quote: Slight tangent, but this thread reminds me of the timing hell I was in working on Sidistic. I had to constantly adjust timing all over the place, which would cause code to adjust and cross pages, changing timing.... it was driving me nuts.

So I wrote a macro that would always use 8 bytes to burn any amount of cycles (except 2 or 4, grrr!) Always wondered if that would be useful to anyone else, though it needs to trash a register and/or a ZP location for some amounts of delay.

But what still nags me: is there some way to burn 4 cycles in 8 bytes that I missed? Obviously, without using page crossing...


The only solution (to burn 4 cycles in 8 bytes) I can think of is one of the bxx branch instructions precisely when the branch is always taken due to some known register/flag state AND crossing a page boundary, since you could then skip some bytes in 4 cycles. ....so this clearly does not adhere to your specification, but my point is just that this is the only way I can think of.
2017-05-05 18:47
Kruthers

Registered: Jul 2016
Posts: 21
Quote: The only solution (to burn 4 cycles in 8 bytes) I can think of is one of the bxx branch instructions precisely when the branch is always taken due to some known register/flag state AND crossing a page boundary, since you could then skip some bytes in 4 cycles. ....so this clearly does not adhere to your specification, but my point is just that this is the only way I can think of.

Yeah, pretty much what I figured. At first I held out hope that some illegal instruction would help, but after reading groepaz' doc was surprised that there are no weird branches out of all those unused opcodes. I guess a "branch slowly" was wishful thinking. ;)
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