XADD Flags? \ VOGONS

XADD Flags?

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First post, by danoon

Posted on 2011-12-06, 20:16

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I noticed that XADD on the normal core does not set flags. The docs I've read said it should said flags like ADD. I don't have a use case where this causes any problems. I was just tracking down a separate bug when I noticed this and was wondering if it was intentional.

Normal Core:

1CASE_0F_D(0xc1) /* XADD Gd,Ed */
2435 	{
3436 	if (CPU_ArchitectureType<CPU_ARCHTYPE_486OLDSLOW) goto illegal_opcode;
4437 	GetRMrd;Bit32u oldrmrd=*rmrd;
5438 	if (rm >= 0xc0 ) {GetEArd;*rmrd=*eard;*eard+=oldrmrd;}
6439 	else {GetEAa;*rmrd=LoadMd(eaa);SaveMd(eaa,LoadMd(eaa)+oldrmrd);}
7440 	break;

Reply 1 of 11, by peterferrie

Posted on 2011-12-06, 20:31

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It should behave just like ADD, but if no games care then it probably won't get fixed. :-)

Reply 2 of 11, by cfoesch

Posted on 2011-12-11, 01:36

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In agreement, according to the P3 Instruction Set Reference from Intel, the XADD does set CF, PF, AF, SF, ZF, and OF flags according to the result of the addition.

Reply 3 of 11, by jefbohn

Posted on 2011-12-16, 10:45

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according to the P3 Instruction Set Reference from Intel

What is P3 instruction?

Last edited by jefbohn on 2011-12-24, 17:11. Edited 1 time in total.

blackberry development

Reply 4 of 11, by wd

Posted on 2011-12-16, 13:30

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pentium3, though any x86 isa reference that lists the instructions has that information.

Reply 5 of 11, by ripsaw8080

Posted on 2011-12-16, 18:22

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The approach in the attached patch is to start with the same code used for ADD and also write the old destination value to the source operand. This way ADDB(), ADDW(), and ADDD() handle the flags exactly the same as ADD.

In my research the operands of opcode (0F C0 nn) are decoded like (00 nn), and (0F C1 nn) like (01 nn), so it seems the comments currently on the XADD instructions have the operand types reversed.

Note that the DOSBox debugger incorrectly disassembles byte XADD as having word operands. I posted a suggested fix for that issue in another thread.

EDIT: included dword instruction in patch.

Reply 6 of 11, by ripsaw8080

Posted on 2011-12-20, 19:48

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Oops, forgot the dword instruction; added it to the patch.

I thought there might be examples of XADD use where programmers challenge themselves to write the smallest possible code, such as 32, 64, 128, and 256-byte demos; and there are indeed a few, but haven't found any that care about flags.

Reply 7 of 11, by ripsaw8080

Posted on 2012-01-21, 12:59

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DOSBox is only changing ZF for the CMPXCHG instruction, and it's true that some docs only mention that flag, but others (example, example) state that all comparison flags are affected. I'm not an expert on the subject, but it would make sense to have consistent behavior for comparisons.

The attached patch implements flag handling for CMPXCHG based on CMP (which includes ZF, so no special handling of it is needed).

Reply 8 of 11, by peterferrie

Posted on 2012-01-23, 02:22

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Yes, all flags are affected. The proper behaviour is exactly what it sounds like: perform the compare, and then exchange the values.

Reply 9 of 11, by wd

Posted on 2012-01-23, 07:53

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Anything that depends on extended flags of XADD?

Reply 10 of 11, by ripsaw8080

Posted on 2012-01-23, 13:09

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It seems XADD and CMPXCHG are rarely used, which I suppose is not unexpected for such CISC-ish 486 instructions. Any broken behavior resulting from unhandled flags could be quite subtle, so I've put log messages on the instructions in case I stumble across examples of their use in the process of testing. I think handling the flags, like fixing BSWAP, is mostly for the sake of correctness at this point, and in no way a priority.

Reply 11 of 11, by wd

Posted on 2012-01-23, 15:45

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It's used for synchronization and the code always looks pretty much the same, flags are destroyed early after. But yeah feel free to bother.

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