Source library

Hand-Rolled MIPS Assembly — Feasibility Research

docs/ps1/hand-rolled-asm-feasibility.md

This is the website shelf page for docs/ps1/hand-rolled-asm-feasibility.md. It exists because the project has hundreds of Markdown files and the website should not pretend the interesting work only happened in the polished essays.

Why this file matters

Active PS1 reference. This is active engineering documentation for the PS1 port. It is close enough to the code that stale claims here become real bugs.

Date: 2026-04-30 Branch context: walk-implementation-20260429 (read-only research; no code changes) Author: research pass for the active perf iteration.

File facts

Field Value
Source path docs/ps1/hand-rolled-asm-feasibility.md
Lines 298
Approx. words 2065
Code fences 1

Outline

  • Hand-Rolled MIPS Assembly — Feasibility Research
  • Question
  • Hardware Refresh
  • Toolchain and Inline Asm Support
  • Hot Path Inventory
  • Where Asm Actually Helps
  • A. Inner pixel loops (real win, modest absolute size)
  • B. Per-row memcpy in clean-rect restore (real win, hot)
  • C. Palette LUT in scratchpad (compose only)
  • Where Asm Doesn’t Help (or is the wrong tool)
  • Cheaper Alternatives To Try First
  • Risk and Maintenance Cost
  • Recommended Plan If We Pursue Asm
  • Concrete Targets and Estimated Wins

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