C++ Application Performance: Optimization, Profiling, and Code Acceleration

Modern C++ applications face growing demands for speed and efficiency. The book "C++ Application Performance" is a practical guide that will help you turn "just working" code into a high-performance solution. Author Alexey Petrov shares proven techniques and strategies used by leading developers of game engines, financial systems, and high-load servers.

What is this book about?

This is not a collection of abstract advice. You will go through the full performance workflow: from detecting bottlenecks using profilers (perf, Valgrind, Intel VTune) to applying low-level optimizations. Special attention is given to:

• Memory management: allocators, cache misses, data alignment, and object pools.
• Multithreading and concurrency: minimizing locks, lock-free structures, atomic operations.
• Algorithm and data structure optimization: from container selection to using SIMD instructions.
• Compiler optimizations: how to write code that works well with the optimizer (RVO, constexpr, attributes).
• Profiling and benchmarking: how to avoid measurement errors and interpret results.

Who is this book for?

• C++ developers who want to improve the performance of their projects.
• Engineers working on games, high-load servers, embedded systems, or financial applications.
• Students and professionals transitioning from "academic" code to production solutions.

What will you learn?

After reading, you will be able to:

• Find and eliminate bottlenecks in C++ code.
• Write code that efficiently uses the CPU cache and memory.
• Design multithreaded systems without data races and deadlocks.
• Apply modern C++17/20 features to accelerate computations.
• Measure performance correctly and avoid common benchmarking mistakes.

The book contains numerous examples, ready-to-use snippets, and checklists for code auditing. It is a desktop reference you will return to with every refactoring or optimization.

Please note: the book assumes a solid knowledge of C++ syntax and basic OOP concepts. If you are just starting to learn the language, we recommend first mastering the fundamentals.