Quadrupling code performance with a "useless" if

# Summary A developer optimizing a domain-specific compressor discovered that adding a simple conditional check to predict when a loop variable remains unchanged can quadruple performance. The original loop suffered from latency issues due to data dependencies between iterations, but a predictable "useless" if statement allows the CPU to speculate ahead and break the dependency chain, transforming the bottleneck from latency-bound to throughput-bound execution.