How much overhead can the -fPIC flag add?

Question

Question

I am testing a simple code which calculates Mandelbrot fractal. I have been checking its performance depending on the number of iterations in the function

Answer 1

As others have discussed in the comment section of your opening post, compiling with -flto should help to reduce the difference in run-times you are seeing for this particular case, since the link time optimisations of gcc will likely figure out that it's actually ok to inline a couple of functions ;)

In general, link time optimisations could lead to massive reductions in code size (~6%) link to paper on link time optimisations in gold, and thus run time as well (more of your program fits in the cache). Also note that -fPIC is mostly viewed as a feature that enables tighter security and is always enabled in android. This question on SO briefly discusses as well. Also, just to let you know, -fpic is the faster version of -fPIC, so if you must use -fPIC try -fpic instead - link to gcc docs. For x86 it might not make a difference, but you need to check this for yourself/ask on gcc-help.