Nova Drop PRNG

nova_drop is a ultra-high-performance, lightweight pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) written in C. It is designed to offer a balance between simplicity, extreme speed (~300+ MOPS), and randomness quality for simulations, games, and general-purpose applications.

Key Features

• Extreme Speed: Capable of generating ~300+ million numbers per second (MOPS), typically 2.3x faster than stdlib.h implementations.
• Thread-Safe by Design: Uses a caller-owned NovaState struct, avoiding global state and supporting concurrent environments.
• Robust Seeding: Support for manual 32-bit seeds, string-based phrases (FNV-1a), or automatic high-entropy seeding via /dev/urandom (Unix) or BCryptGenRandom (Windows).
• Expanded API: Built-in utilities for bounded ranges, floats [0, 1), boolean flips, and sequence "jumping" for parallel processing.
• State Serialization: Easily save and load the PRNG state for persistence or networking.
• Single-Header Option: Available as an STB-style single-header library (nova_drop_single.h) for zero-configuration integration.
• Doxygen Documented: Fully commented header for professional IDE tooltips and automated documentation.

Performance Benchmark

Running on a standard environment, nova_drop shows the following throughput:

Implementation	Throughput (MOPS)	Time (100M iter)
nova_drop	~316.0 MOPS	~0.32s
stdlib rand()	~135.0 MOPS	~0.74s

Benchmarks performed with gcc -O3. nova_drop significantly outperforms stdlib.h while maintaining a 128-bit internal state and more complex mixing.

Installation

The project can be integrated as a standard header/source pair. Alternatively, use the single-header version (nova_drop_single.h) for zero-configuration integration:

#define NOVA_DROP_IMPLEMENTATION
#include "nova_drop_single.h"

Quick Start

Auto-Seeding & Strings

NovaState state;
nova_auto_seed(&state);                 // Uses OS entropy (Unix/Windows)
nova_seed_string(&state, "my_phrase");  // Seed with a string

Utilities & Parallelism

NovaState state;
nova_init(&state, 12345);

uint32_t dice = nova_range(&state, 1, 6);  // [1, 6]
float chance = nova_float(&state);         // [0.0, 1.0)
int coin = nova_bool(&state);              // 0 or 1

// Jump the sequence forward for a parallel thread
nova_jump(&state); 

API Reference

• void nova_init(NovaState *state, uint32_t seed): Initialize with a specific seed.
• void nova_seed_string(NovaState *state, const char *key): Initialize by hashing a string phrase.
• void nova_auto_seed(NovaState *state): Initialize using system entropy (Unix/Windows).
• uint32_t nova_drop(NovaState *state): Generate a 32-bit random integer.
• uint32_t nova_range(NovaState *state, uint32_t min, uint32_t max): Generate a number in [min, max].
• float nova_float(NovaState *state): Generate a float in [0.0, 1.0).
• int nova_bool(NovaState *state): Generate a 0 or 1.
• void nova_serialize(const NovaState *state, uint32_t *buffer): Export state to a buffer.
• void nova_deserialize(NovaState *state, const uint32_t *buffer): Import state from a buffer.
• void nova_jump(NovaState *state): Advance state by $2^{64}$ equivalent steps for parallel streams.

Development & Testing

The project includes a multi-target Makefile:

• make test: Build and run the basic demonstration.
• make unit-test: Run the comprehensive Unity-based test suite (10+ tests).
• make bench: Run the performance benchmark utility.
• make nova_raw: Build the binary streaming utility (pipe to dieharder or rngtest).

# Example: Statistical Validation
make nova_raw
./nova_raw | rngtest -c 1000

License & Disclaimer

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Disclaimer: nova_drop is intended for non-cryptographic purposes. It has not undergone formal security audits and should not be used for security-critical applications (e.g., encryption keys, sensitive hashing) without further validation.