How to calculate MIPS for an algorithm for ARM processor

Question

I have been asked recently to produced the MIPS (million of instructions per second) for an algorithm we have developed. The algorithm is exposed by a set of C-style functions.

Answer 1

MIPS are a measure of CPU speed, not algorithm performance. I can only assume the somewhere along the line, someone is slightly confused. What are they trying to find out? The only likely scenario I can think of is they're trying to help you determine how fast a processor they need to give you to run your program satisfactorily.

Since you can measure an algorithm in number of instructions (which is no doubt going to depend on the input data, so this is non-trivial), you then need some measure of time in order to get MIPS -- for instance, say "I need to invoke it 1000 times per second". If your algorithm is 1000 instructions for that particular case, you'll end up with:

1000 instructions / (1/1000) seconds = 1000000 instructions per second = 1 MIPS.

I still think that's a really odd way to try to do things, so you may want to ask for clarification. As for your specific questions, I'll leave that to someone more familiar with Visual Studio.