AVX2 what is the most efficient way to pack left based on a mask?

Question

If you have an input array, and an output array, but you only want to write those elements which pass a certain condition, what would be the most efficient way to do this in

Answer 1

If you are targeting AMD Zen this method may be preferred, due to the very slow pdepand pext on ryzen (18 cycles each).

I came up with this method, which uses a compressed LUT, which is 768(+1 padding) bytes, instead of 8k. It requires a broadcast of a single scalar value, which is then shifted by a different amount in each lane, then masked to the lower 3 bits, which provides a 0-7 LUT.

Here is the intrinsics version, along with code to build LUT.

//Generate Move mask via: _mm256_movemask_ps(_mm256_castsi256_ps(mask)); etc
__m256i MoveMaskToIndices(u32 moveMask) {
    u8 *adr = g_pack_left_table_u8x3 + moveMask * 3;
    __m256i indices = _mm256_set1_epi32(*reinterpret_cast(adr));//lower 24 bits has our LUT

   // __m256i m = _mm256_sllv_epi32(indices, _mm256_setr_epi32(29, 26, 23, 20, 17, 14, 11, 8));

    //now shift it right to get 3 bits at bottom
    //__m256i shufmask = _mm256_srli_epi32(m, 29);

    //Simplified version suggested by wim
    //shift each lane so desired 3 bits are a bottom
    //There is leftover data in the lane, but _mm256_permutevar8x32_ps  only examines the first 3 bits so this is ok
    __m256i shufmask = _mm256_srlv_epi32 (indices, _mm256_setr_epi32(0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21));
    return shufmask;
}

u32 get_nth_bits(int a) {
    u32 out = 0;
    int c = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < 8; ++i) {
        auto set = (a >> i) & 1;
        if (set) {
            out |= (i << (c * 3));
            c++;
        }
    }
    return out;
}
u8 g_pack_left_table_u8x3[256 * 3 + 1];

void BuildPackMask() {
    for (int i = 0; i < 256; ++i) {
        *reinterpret_cast(&g_pack_left_table_u8x3[i * 3]) = get_nth_bits(i);
    }
}

Here is the assembly generated by MSVC:

  lea ecx, DWORD PTR [rcx+rcx*2]
  lea rax, OFFSET FLAT:unsigned char * g_pack_left_table_u8x3 ; g_pack_left_table_u8x3
  vpbroadcastd ymm0, DWORD PTR [rcx+rax]
  vpsrlvd ymm0, ymm0, YMMWORD PTR __ymm@00000015000000120000000f0000000c00000009000000060000000300000000