hash-bench-3ds

Part of the hash-bench cross-platform suite — the same hash-algorithm sources timed natively on seven Nintendo consoles (NES · GB/GBC · GBA · NDS · DSi · 3DS · N64).

Native Nintendo 3DS / 2DS / New 3DS hashing-algorithm benchmark — 32 algorithms running on the ARM11 MPCore application processor through libctru, with cycle-accurate timing via svcGetSystemTick().

Same algorithm set and source files as hash-bench-nds and hash-bench-gba — but this is a native 3DS ARM11 build, not a DS-compat ROM. That means:

• Real FPU, real L1+L2 cache, real branch predictor
• 268 MHz on Old 3DS / Old 2DS, 804 MHz on New 3DS / New 2DS XL (via osSetSpeedupEnable(true))
• ARMv6K instruction set (vs DS's ARMv5TE) — slightly newer rotates, ldrex/strex, etc.
• Output .3dsx runs via the Homebrew Launcher (FBI / Anemone / etc.)

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Try it

File	Target	Notes
hash-bench-3ds.3dsx	3DS / 2DS family (homebrew loader)	ARM11 native, ~147 KB. Drop into /3ds/hash-bench-3ds/hash-bench-3ds.3dsx on the SD card and launch from the Homebrew Launcher.
hash-bench-3ds.smdh	Companion metadata	Auto-generated icon + title, lives next to the .3dsx.

For testing on a PC: load hash-bench-3ds.3dsx in Citra or Lime3DS.

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Build from source

Requires devkitPro with the 3ds-dev meta-package (devkitARM + libctru

• 3dsxtool). https://github.com/devkitPro/installer/releases.

.\build.bat            # build hash-bench-3ds.3dsx + smdh
.\build.bat clean

Linux/macOS/CI: make.

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What's interesting on the 3DS

The ARM11 is the first CPU in this benchmark suite with:

1. Real cache — L1 D-cache (16 KB) easily fits the entire 1 KB workload buffer + state. Throughput should be cache-bound, not memory-bound, for the entire sweep.
2. Hardware FPU — not used by any hash algorithm (they're all integer), but a baseline data point for "modern" mobile CPU.
3. Out-of-order issue (in the New 3DS Cortex-A9) — instruction parallelism that helps the ARX-style hashes more than the bit-by-bit CRCs.
4. 804 MHz boost mode — osSetSpeedupEnable(true) triples clock on New 3DS. The exact ratio of speedup vs the NDS at 33.5 MHz (24×) shows how much non-clock benefits there are.

The on-screen status footer reports the active clock (268 / 804 MHz) so you know which mode you're in.

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Algorithm set

Identical to hash-bench-nds — see the NDS README for the full table. All 32 sources are byte-identical across the GBA / NDS / DSi / 3DS projects.

Iteration counts are dialed 10× higher than the NDS build because the ARM11 is so fast — a sweep takes ~3 seconds end-to-end vs ~10s on the NDS, despite running 10× more iterations per algo.

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Timing methodology

u64 t0 = svcGetSystemTick();
for (k = 0; k < iters; k++) hash(buf, 1024, digest);
u64 ticks = svcGetSystemTick() - t0;
u64 us    = ticks * 1000000ULL / arm11_clock_hz;   // SYSCLOCK_ARM11 or _NEW

svcGetSystemTick() returns a free-running 64-bit counter at the ARM11 clock (SYSCLOCK_ARM11 = 268111856 Hz on Old, SYSCLOCK_ARM11_NEW = 804000000 Hz on New 3DS). The host runtime auto-detects via APT_CheckNew3DS() and adjusts the divisor accordingly.

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Layout

source/
  main.c                    Boot, dual-console, dispatch, run_sweep
  (32 hash algorithm files, byte-identical to hash-bench-nds/source/)
include/
  hashes.h
artifacts/
  hash-bench-3ds.3dsx       Native 3DS homebrew binary
  hash-bench-3ds.smdh       Icon + metadata
tests/
  refs.txt                  Reference digests (shared)
  verify.c                  Host gcc cross-check
Makefile                    devkitPro 3DS template
build.bat                   Windows wrapper

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Acknowledgments

• devkitPro / devkitARM
• libctru — 3DS hardware abstraction, syscalls, console
• Citra / Lime3DS — 3DS emulators
• hash-bench-nds / hash-bench-gba — sibling projects supplying the algorithm sources