If you feel comfortable, you could step into the weird and wonderful world of logarithms...
if x= a^1.5
then log x = 1.5 * log a
This could be handy if you have to calculate a lot of different powers of 'a' as you can get the log once and then use this value in a whole series of simple multiplications. You would then use exp(x) to 'translate' them back into normal numbers.
To be honest, your ALU/FPU is probably going to handle this realtime better than most hand-coded optimisations (I guess!)
if x= a^1.5
then log x = 1.5 * log a
This could be handy if you have to calculate a lot of different powers of 'a' as you can get the log once and then use this value in a whole series of simple multiplications. You would then use exp(x) to 'translate' them back into normal numbers.
To be honest, your ALU/FPU is probably going to handle this realtime better than most hand-coded optimisations (I guess!)