Next: IA-64 Options, Previous: HPPA Options, Up: Submodel Options

#### 3.17.15 Intel 386 and AMD x86-64 Options

These -m options are defined for the i386 and x86-64 family of computers:

`-mtune=`cpu-type
  Tune to cpu-type everything applicable about the generated code, except for the ABI and the set of available instructions. The choices for cpu-type are:
  generic
    Produce code optimized for the most common IA32/AMD64/EM64T processors. If you know the CPU on which your code will run, then you should use the corresponding -mtune option instead of -mtune=generic. But, if you do not know exactly what CPU users of your application will have, then you should use this option.

    As new processors are deployed in the marketplace, the behavior of this option will change. Therefore, if you upgrade to a newer version of GCC, the code generated option will change to reflect the processors that were most common when that version of GCC was released.

    There is no -march=generic option because -march indicates the instruction set the compiler can use, and there is no generic instruction set applicable to all processors. In contrast, -mtune indicates the processor (or, in this case, collection of processors) for which the code is optimized.

  native
    This selects the CPU to tune for at compilation time by determining the processor type of the compiling machine. Using -mtune=native will produce code optimized for the local machine under the constraints of the selected instruction set. Using -march=native will enable all instruction subsets supported by the local machine (hence the result might not run on different machines).
  i386
    Original Intel's i386 CPU.
  i486
    Intel's i486 CPU. (No scheduling is implemented for this chip.)
  i586, pentium
    Intel Pentium CPU with no MMX support.
  pentium-mmx
    Intel PentiumMMX CPU based on Pentium core with MMX instruction set support.
  pentiumpro
    Intel PentiumPro CPU.
  i686
    Same as `generic`, but when used as `march` option, PentiumPro instruction set will be used, so the code will run on all i686 family chips.
  pentium2
    Intel Pentium2 CPU based on PentiumPro core with MMX instruction set support.
  pentium3, pentium3m
    Intel Pentium3 CPU based on PentiumPro core with MMX and SSE instruction set support.
  pentium-m
    Low power version of Intel Pentium3 CPU with MMX, SSE and SSE2 instruction set support. Used by Centrino notebooks.
  pentium4, pentium4m
    Intel Pentium4 CPU with MMX, SSE and SSE2 instruction set support.
  prescott
    Improved version of Intel Pentium4 CPU with MMX, SSE, SSE2 and SSE3 instruction set support.
  nocona
    Improved version of Intel Pentium4 CPU with 64-bit extensions, MMX, SSE, SSE2 and SSE3 instruction set support.
  core2
    Intel Core2 CPU with 64-bit extensions, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3 and SSSE3 instruction set support.
  k6
    AMD K6 CPU with MMX instruction set support.
  k6-2, k6-3
    Improved versions of AMD K6 CPU with MMX and 3dNOW! instruction set support.
  athlon, athlon-tbird
    AMD Athlon CPU with MMX, 3dNOW!, enhanced 3dNOW! and SSE prefetch instructions support.
  athlon-4, athlon-xp, athlon-mp
    Improved AMD Athlon CPU with MMX, 3dNOW!, enhanced 3dNOW! and full SSE instruction set support.
  k8, opteron, athlon64, athlon-fx
    AMD K8 core based CPUs with x86-64 instruction set support. (This supersets MMX, SSE, SSE2, 3dNOW!, enhanced 3dNOW! and 64-bit instruction set extensions.)
  k8-sse3, opteron-sse3, athlon64-sse3
    Improved versions of k8, opteron and athlon64 with SSE3 instruction set support.
  amdfam10, barcelona
    AMD Family 10h core based CPUs with x86-64 instruction set support. (This supersets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, 3dNOW!, enhanced 3dNOW!, ABM and 64-bit instruction set extensions.)
  winchip-c6
    IDT Winchip C6 CPU, dealt in same way as i486 with additional MMX instruction set support.
  winchip2
    IDT Winchip2 CPU, dealt in same way as i486 with additional MMX and 3dNOW! instruction set support.
  c3
    Via C3 CPU with MMX and 3dNOW! instruction set support. (No scheduling is implemented for this chip.)
  c3-2
    Via C3-2 CPU with MMX and SSE instruction set support. (No scheduling is implemented for this chip.)
  geode
    Embedded AMD CPU with MMX and 3dNOW! instruction set support.

  While picking a specific cpu-type will schedule things appropriately for that particular chip, the compiler will not generate any code that does not run on the i386 without the -march=cpu-type option being used.

`-march=`cpu-type
  Generate instructions for the machine type cpu-type. The choices for cpu-type are the same as for -mtune. Moreover, specifying -march=cpu-type implies -mtune=cpu-type.
`-mcpu=`cpu-type
  A deprecated synonym for -mtune.
`-mfpmath=`unit
  Generate floating point arithmetics for selected unit unit. The choices for unit are:
  387
    Use the standard 387 floating point coprocessor present majority of chips and emulated otherwise. Code compiled with this option will run almost everywhere. The temporary results are computed in 80bit precision instead of precision specified by the type resulting in slightly different results compared to most of other chips. See -ffloat-store for more detailed description.

    This is the default choice for i386 compiler.

  sse
    Use scalar floating point instructions present in the SSE instruction set. This instruction set is supported by Pentium3 and newer chips, in the AMD line by Athlon-4, Athlon-xp and Athlon-mp chips. The earlier version of SSE instruction set supports only single precision arithmetics, thus the double and extended precision arithmetics is still done using 387. Later version, present only in Pentium4 and the future AMD x86-64 chips supports double precision arithmetics too.

    For the i386 compiler, you need to use -march=cpu-type, -msse or -msse2 switches to enable SSE extensions and make this option effective. For the x86-64 compiler, these extensions are enabled by default.

    The resulting code should be considerably faster in the majority of cases and avoid the numerical instability problems of 387 code, but may break some existing code that expects temporaries to be 80bit.

    This is the default choice for the x86-64 compiler.

  sse,387
    Attempt to utilize both instruction sets at once. This effectively double the amount of available registers and on chips with separate execution units for 387 and SSE the execution resources too. Use this option with care, as it is still experimental, because the GCC register allocator does not model separate functional units well resulting in instable performance.
`-masm=`dialect
  Output asm instructions using selected dialect. Supported choices are intel or att (the default one). Darwin does not support intel.
`-mieee-fp`
`-mno-ieee-fp`
  Control whether or not the compiler uses IEEE floating point comparisons. These handle correctly the case where the result of a comparison is unordered.
`-msoft-float`
  Generate output containing library calls for floating point. Warning: the requisite libraries are not part of GCC. Normally the facilities of the machine's usual C compiler are used, but this can't be done directly in cross-compilation. You must make your own arrangements to provide suitable library functions for cross-compilation.

  On machines where a function returns floating point results in the 80387 register stack, some floating point opcodes may be emitted even if -msoft-float is used.

`-mno-fp-ret-in-387`
  Do not use the FPU registers for return values of functions.

  The usual calling convention has functions return values of types `float` and `double` in an FPU register, even if there is no FPU. The idea is that the operating system should emulate an FPU.

  The option -mno-fp-ret-in-387 causes such values to be returned in ordinary CPU registers instead.

`-mno-fancy-math-387`
  Some 387 emulators do not support the `sin`, `cos` and `sqrt` instructions for the 387. Specify this option to avoid generating those instructions. This option is the default on FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. This option is overridden when -march indicates that the target cpu will always have an FPU and so the instruction will not need emulation. As of revision 2.6.1, these instructions are not generated unless you also use the -funsafe-math-optimizations switch.
`-malign-double`
`-mno-align-double`
  Control whether GCC aligns `double`, `long double`, and `long long` variables on a two word boundary or a one word boundary. Aligning `double` variables on a two word boundary will produce code that runs somewhat faster on a Pentium at the expense of more memory.

  On x86-64, -malign-double is enabled by default.

  Warning: if you use the -malign-double switch, structures containing the above types will be aligned differently than the published application binary interface specifications for the 386 and will not be binary compatible with structures in code compiled without that switch.

`-m96bit-long-double`
`-m128bit-long-double`
  These switches control the size of `long double` type. The i386 application binary interface specifies the size to be 96 bits, so -m96bit-long-double is the default in 32 bit mode.

  Modern architectures (Pentium and newer) would prefer `long double` to be aligned to an 8 or 16 byte boundary. In arrays or structures conforming to the ABI, this would not be possible. So specifying a -m128bit-long-double will align `long double` to a 16 byte boundary by padding the `long double` with an additional 32 bit zero.

  In the x86-64 compiler, -m128bit-long-double is the default choice as its ABI specifies that `long double` is to be aligned on 16 byte boundary.

  Notice that neither of these options enable any extra precision over the x87 standard of 80 bits for a `long double`.

  Warning: if you override the default value for your target ABI, the structures and arrays containing `long double` variables will change their size as well as function calling convention for function taking `long double` will be modified. Hence they will not be binary compatible with arrays or structures in code compiled without that switch.

`-mmlarge-data-threshold=`number
  When -mcmodel=medium is specified, the data greater than threshold are placed in large data section. This value must be the same across all object linked into the binary and defaults to 65535.
`-mrtd`
  Use a different function-calling convention, in which functions that take a fixed number of arguments return with the `ret` num instruction, which pops their arguments while returning. This saves one instruction in the caller since there is no need to pop the arguments there.

  You can specify that an individual function is called with this calling sequence with the function attribute stdcall. You can also override the -mrtd option by using the function attribute cdecl. See Function Attributes.

  Warning: this calling convention is incompatible with the one normally used on Unix, so you cannot use it if you need to call libraries compiled with the Unix compiler.

  Also, you must provide function prototypes for all functions that take variable numbers of arguments (including `printf`); otherwise incorrect code will be generated for calls to those functions.

  In addition, seriously incorrect code will result if you call a function with too many arguments. (Normally, extra arguments are harmlessly ignored.)

`-mregparm=`num
  Control how many registers are used to pass integer arguments. By default, no registers are used to pass arguments, and at most 3 registers can be used. You can control this behavior for a specific function by using the function attribute regparm. See Function Attributes.

  Warning: if you use this switch, and num is nonzero, then you must build all modules with the same value, including any libraries. This includes the system libraries and startup modules.

`-msseregparm`
  Use SSE register passing conventions for float and double arguments and return values. You can control this behavior for a specific function by using the function attribute sseregparm. See Function Attributes.

  Warning: if you use this switch then you must build all modules with the same value, including any libraries. This includes the system libraries and startup modules.

`-mpc32`
`-mpc64`
`-mpc80`
  Set 80387 floating-point precision to 32, 64 or 80 bits. When -mpc32 is specified, the significands of results of floating-point operations are rounded to 24 bits (single precision); -mpc64 rounds the the significands of results of floating-point operations to 53 bits (double precision) and -mpc80 rounds the significands of results of floating-point operations to 64 bits (extended double precision), which is the default. When this option is used, floating-point operations in higher precisions are not available to the programmer without setting the FPU control word explicitly.

  Setting the rounding of floating-point operations to less than the default 80 bits can speed some programs by 2% or more. Note that some mathematical libraries assume that extended precision (80 bit) floating-point operations are enabled by default; routines in such libraries could suffer significant loss of accuracy, typically through so-called "catastrophic cancellation", when this option is used to set the precision to less than extended precision.

`-mstackrealign`
  Realign the stack at entry. On the Intel x86, the -mstackrealign option will generate an alternate prologue and epilogue that realigns the runtime stack. This supports mixing legacy codes that keep a 4-byte aligned stack with modern codes that keep a 16-byte stack for SSE compatibility. The alternate prologue and epilogue are slower and bigger than the regular ones, and the alternate prologue requires an extra scratch register; this lowers the number of registers available if used in conjunction with the `regparm` attribute. The -mstackrealign option is incompatible with the nested function prologue; this is considered a hard error. See also the attribute `force_align_arg_pointer`, applicable to individual functions.
`-mpreferred-stack-boundary=`num
  Attempt to keep the stack boundary aligned to a 2 raised to num byte boundary. If -mpreferred-stack-boundary is not specified, the default is 4 (16 bytes or 128 bits).

  On Pentium and PentiumPro, `double` and `long double` values should be aligned to an 8 byte boundary (see -malign-double) or suffer significant run time performance penalties. On Pentium III, the Streaming SIMD Extension (SSE) data type `__m128` may not work properly if it is not 16 byte aligned.

  To ensure proper alignment of this values on the stack, the stack boundary must be as aligned as that required by any value stored on the stack. Further, every function must be generated such that it keeps the stack aligned. Thus calling a function compiled with a higher preferred stack boundary from a function compiled with a lower preferred stack boundary will most likely misalign the stack. It is recommended that libraries that use callbacks always use the default setting.

  This extra alignment does consume extra stack space, and generally increases code size. Code that is sensitive to stack space usage, such as embedded systems and operating system kernels, may want to reduce the preferred alignment to -mpreferred-stack-boundary=2.

`-mmmx`
`-mno-mmx`
`-msse`
`-mno-sse`
`-msse2`
`-mno-sse2`
`-msse3`
`-mno-sse3`
`-mssse3`
`-mno-ssse3`
`-msse4.1`
`-mno-sse4.1`
`-msse4.2`
`-mno-sse4.2`
`-msse4`
`-mno-sse4`
`-msse4a`
`-mno-sse4a`
`-msse5`
`-mno-sse5`
`-m3dnow`
`-mno-3dnow`
`-mpopcnt`
`-mno-popcnt`
`-mabm`
`-mno-abm`
  These switches enable or disable the use of instructions in the MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4A, SSE5, ABM or 3DNow! extended instruction sets. These extensions are also available as built-in functions: see X86 Built-in Functions, for details of the functions enabled and disabled by these switches.

  To have SSE/SSE2 instructions generated automatically from floating-point code (as opposed to 387 instructions), see -mfpmath=sse.

  These options will enable GCC to use these extended instructions in generated code, even without -mfpmath=sse. Applications which perform runtime CPU detection must compile separate files for each supported architecture, using the appropriate flags. In particular, the file containing the CPU detection code should be compiled without these options.

`-mcld`
  This option instructs GCC to emit a `cld` instruction in the prologue of functions that use string instructions. String instructions depend on the DF flag to select between autoincrement or autodecrement mode. While the ABI specifies the DF flag to be cleared on function entry, some operating systems violate this specification by not clearing the DF flag in their exception dispatchers. The exception handler can be invoked with the DF flag set which leads to wrong direction mode, when string instructions are used. This option can be enabled by default on 32-bit x86 targets by configuring GCC with the --enable-cld configure option. Generation of `cld` instructions can be suppressed with the -mno-cld compiler option in this case.
`-mcx16`
  This option will enable GCC to use CMPXCHG16B instruction in generated code. CMPXCHG16B allows for atomic operations on 128-bit double quadword (or oword) data types. This is useful for high resolution counters that could be updated by multiple processors (or cores). This instruction is generated as part of atomic built-in functions: see Atomic Builtins for details.
`-msahf`
  This option will enable GCC to use SAHF instruction in generated 64-bit code. Early Intel CPUs with Intel 64 lacked LAHF and SAHF instructions supported by AMD64 until introduction of Pentium 4 G1 step in December 2005. LAHF and SAHF are load and store instructions, respectively, for certain status flags. In 64-bit mode, SAHF instruction is used to optimize `fmod`, `drem` or `remainder` built-in functions: see Other Builtins for details.
`-mrecip`
  This option will enable GCC to use RCPSS and RSQRTSS instructions (and their vectorized variants RCPPS and RSQRTPS) with an additional Newton-Rhapson step to increase precision instead of DIVSS and SQRTSS (and their vectorized variants) for single precision floating point arguments. These instructions are generated only when -funsafe-math-optimizations is enabled together with -finite-math-only and -fno-trapping-math. Note that while the throughput of the sequence is higher than the throughput of the non-reciprocal instruction, the precision of the sequence can be decreased by up to 2 ulp (i.e. the inverse of 1.0 equals 0.99999994).
`-mveclibabi=`type
  Specifies the ABI type to use for vectorizing intrinsics using an external library. Supported types are `acml` for the AMD math core library style of interfacing. GCC will currently emit calls to `__vrd2_sin`, `__vrd2_cos`, `__vrd2_exp`, `__vrd2_log`, `__vrd2_log2`, `__vrd2_log10`, `__vrs4_sinf`, `__vrs4_cosf`, `__vrs4_expf`, `__vrs4_logf`, `__vrs4_log2f`, `__vrs4_log10f` and `__vrs4_powf` when using this type and -ftree-vectorize is enabled. A ACML ABI compatible library will have to be specified at link time.
`-mpush-args`
`-mno-push-args`
  Use PUSH operations to store outgoing parameters. This method is shorter and usually equally fast as method using SUB/MOV operations and is enabled by default. In some cases disabling it may improve performance because of improved scheduling and reduced dependencies.
`-maccumulate-outgoing-args`
  If enabled, the maximum amount of space required for outgoing arguments will be computed in the function prologue. This is faster on most modern CPUs because of reduced dependencies, improved scheduling and reduced stack usage when preferred stack boundary is not equal to 2. The drawback is a notable increase in code size. This switch implies -mno-push-args.
`-mthreads`
  Support thread-safe exception handling on Mingw32. Code that relies on thread-safe exception handling must compile and link all code with the -mthreads option. When compiling, -mthreads defines -D_MT; when linking, it links in a special thread helper library -lmingwthrd which cleans up per thread exception handling data.
`-mno-align-stringops`
  Do not align destination of inlined string operations. This switch reduces code size and improves performance in case the destination is already aligned, but GCC doesn't know about it.
`-minline-all-stringops`
  By default GCC inlines string operations only when destination is known to be aligned at least to 4 byte boundary. This enables more inlining, increase code size, but may improve performance of code that depends on fast memcpy, strlen and memset for short lengths.
`-minline-stringops-dynamically`
  For string operation of unknown size, inline runtime checks so for small blocks inline code is used, while for large blocks library call is used.
`-mstringop-strategy=`alg
  Overwrite internal decision heuristic about particular algorithm to inline string operation with. The allowed values are `rep_byte`, `rep_4byte`, `rep_8byte` for expanding using i386 `rep` prefix of specified size, `byte_loop`, `loop`, `unrolled_loop` for expanding inline loop, `libcall` for always expanding library call.
`-momit-leaf-frame-pointer`
  Don't keep the frame pointer in a register for leaf functions. This avoids the instructions to save, set up and restore frame pointers and makes an extra register available in leaf functions. The option -fomit-frame-pointer removes the frame pointer for all functions which might make debugging harder.
`-mtls-direct-seg-refs`
`-mno-tls-direct-seg-refs`
  Controls whether TLS variables may be accessed with offsets from the TLS segment register (`%gs` for 32-bit, `%fs` for 64-bit), or whether the thread base pointer must be added. Whether or not this is legal depends on the operating system, and whether it maps the segment to cover the entire TLS area.

  For systems that use GNU libc, the default is on.

`-mfused-madd`
`-mno-fused-madd`
  Enable automatic generation of fused floating point multiply-add instructions if the ISA supports such instructions. The -mfused-madd option is on by default. The fused multiply-add instructions have a different rounding behavior compared to executing a multiply followed by an add.

These -m switches are supported in addition to the above on AMD x86-64 processors in 64-bit environments.

`-m32`
`-m64`
  Generate code for a 32-bit or 64-bit environment. The 32-bit environment sets int, long and pointer to 32 bits and generates code that runs on any i386 system. The 64-bit environment sets int to 32 bits and long and pointer to 64 bits and generates code for AMD's x86-64 architecture. For darwin only the -m64 option turns off the -fno-pic and -mdynamic-no-pic options.
`-mno-red-zone`
  Do not use a so called red zone for x86-64 code. The red zone is mandated by the x86-64 ABI, it is a 128-byte area beyond the location of the stack pointer that will not be modified by signal or interrupt handlers and therefore can be used for temporary data without adjusting the stack pointer. The flag -mno-red-zone disables this red zone.
`-mcmodel=small`
  Generate code for the small code model: the program and its symbols must be linked in the lower 2 GB of the address space. Pointers are 64 bits. Programs can be statically or dynamically linked. This is the default code model.
`-mcmodel=kernel`
  Generate code for the kernel code model. The kernel runs in the negative 2 GB of the address space. This model has to be used for Linux kernel code.
`-mcmodel=medium`
  Generate code for the medium model: The program is linked in the lower 2 GB of the address space but symbols can be located anywhere in the address space. Programs can be statically or dynamically linked, but building of shared libraries are not supported with the medium model.
`-mcmodel=large`
  Generate code for the large model: This model makes no assumptions about addresses and sizes of sections.