Subject: Re: indirect calls [Re: issues with com and non-PCI platforms.... a proposal]
To: None <pavel.cahyna@st.mff.cuni.cz>
From: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@shagadelic.org>
List: tech-kern
Date: 03/14/2006 19:35:27
On Mar 14, 2006, at 12:10 PM, Pavel Cahyna wrote:

> What can be so slow? An indirect function call, or function calls in
> general? And which architectures especially suffer from expensive  
> indirect
> function calls?

On some architectures, an indirect call flushes the branch prediction  
buffer, for example.  (The Xscale is one such architecture).

-- thorpej