On the xorshift random number generators
Top Cited Papers
- 1 October 2005
- journal article
- Published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation
- Vol. 15 (4) , 346-361
- https://doi.org/10.1145/1113316.1113319
Abstract
G. Marsaglia recently introduced a class of very fast xorshift random number generators, whose implementation uses three “xorshift” operations. They belong to a large family of generators based on linear recurrences modulo 2, which also includes shift-register generators, the Mersenne twister, and several others. In this article, we analyze the theoretical properties of xorshift generators, search for the best ones with respect to the equidistribution criterion, and test them empirically. We find that the vast majority of xorshift generators with only three xorshift operations, including those having good equidistribution, fail several simple statistical tests. We also discuss generators with more than three xorshifts.Keywords
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