c++ - Why are memcpy() and memmove() faster than pointer increments?

Question

I am copying N bytes from pSrc to pDest. This can be done in a single loop:

for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
    *pDest++ = *pSrc++

Why is this slower than memcpy or memmove? What tricks do they use to speed it up?

Answer 1

Because memcpy uses word pointers instead of byte pointers, also the memcpy implementations are often written with SIMD instructions which makes it possible to shuffle 128 bits at a time.

SIMD instructions are assembly instructions that can perform the same operation on each element in a vector up to 16 bytes long. That includes load and store instructions.