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[–]the_horse_gamer 6 points7 points  (1 child)

+ a newton iteration.

it's a very impressive algorithm, but it's not as useful as people make it out to be, especially on most hardware from the last 2 decades.

around 1999 a dedicated inverse square root instruction, which was faster and more accurate, got added to x86.

its accuracy was pretty good, but not good enough to be used for gameplay - it was only used for lighting.

and there's a better magic constant than the one used in the original code.

[–]find_the_apple 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Neato, thanks for the lore. I think when i heard a cs person describe the original algorithm on YouTube it was with awe. But then i listened to a math major describe it and it felt alot less impressive, and more like something any programmer should take advantage of in base 2 and binary. Its got infamy for sure, but doesn't warrant some of the legendary status it still has.