Enable Advanced Vector Extensions for Libraries: Pros, Cons, and Scenarios

This paper introduces three effective ways to enable Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) for libraries on operation systems and discusses the pros, cons, and scenarios of each way. The easiest and most common way is to leverage the compiler’s auto-vectorization capability by directly compiling the code with options. The second way is to leverage the compiler’s Function Multi-Versioning (FMV) capability. The third one is the most powerful way which reimplements key computation code blocks with x86 assembly language (ASM)/Intrinsic. Developers could choose the suitable method by understanding the pros, cons, and limitations of each way.