dhh: Opus 5.5 one-shot ported Rust screensaver engine to x86-64 asm, 17x faster

zack_overflow · x · 2026-09-26

dhh reports porting the Omarchy screensaver engine (ttfx) from Rust to x86-64 assembly in a single Opus 5.5 translation, achieving up to 17x speedup.

Quoting this, zackoverflow argues AGI is now beating compilers at optimization: the model can instantly read compiler-generated asm and map it back to source, 1000x faster than a human, and routinely spots compiler mistakes like spilling registers to the stack or failing to keep hot values in registers. Rather than coaxing the compiler into optimal output, it's often better to have the model write the asm directly, steal back any missed optimizations from compiler output, and target each CPU architecture's intimate details. He notes context window and speed limits keep it from being practical for all software, but it's already very useful for perf-critical code.

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