Streamlining Game Code

I am currently studying assembly, in hopes of one day forging a game of my own design from raw machine code.

In this particular vein... I have stumbled upon a problem, that of Square Roots, and the methods of calculating them.

It is my understanding that the only methods known to calculate a square root are based on the iterative-guesswork approach.


How helpful would a single iteration equation to calculate a square root be?

Any Takers?

-Edrick

[edit on 13-5-2010 by Edrick]

reply to post by Edrick


I'm studying the C programming language this term, and we are just now touching on assembly language... So I don't know if I am accurately comprehending your post.

It sounds to me though, that a single iteration would be much quicker than a guesswork approach. However, with how quickly hardware is able to make calculations these days, my guess is that the gains would not be significant.

Unless... are you are programming for a cell phone or other less powerful device? I could see a benefit for optimizing every calculation possible.