What is the fastest way to convert float to int on x86

It depends on if you want a truncating conversion or a rounding one and at what precision. By default, C will perform a truncating conversion when you go from float to int. There are FPU instructions that do it but it's not an ANSI C conversion and there are significant caveats to using it (such as knowing the FPU rounding state). Since the answer to your problem is quite complex and depends on some variables you haven't expressed, I recommend this article on the issue:

http://www.stereopsis.com/FPU.html

Packed conversion using SSE is by far the fastest method, since you can convert multiple values in the same instruction. ffmpeg has a lot of assembly for this (mostly for converting the decoded output of audio to integer samples); check it for some examples.

A commonly used trick for plain x86/x87 code is to force the mantissa part of the float to represent the int. 32 bit version follows.

The 64-bit version is analogical. The Lua version posted above is faster, but relies on the truncation of double to a 32-bit result, therefore it requires the x87 unit to be set to double precision, and cannot be adapted for double to 64-bit int conversion.

The nice thing about this code is it is completely portable for all platforms conforming to IEEE 754, the only assumption made is the floating point rounding mode is set to nearest. Note: Portable in the sense it compiles and works. Platforms other than x86 usually do not benefit much from this technique, if at all.

static const float Snapper=3<<22;

union UFloatInt {
 int i;
 float f;
};

/** by Vlad Kaipetsky
portable assuming FP24 set to nearest rounding mode
efficient on x86 platform
*/
inline int toInt( float fval )
{
  Assert( fabs(fval)<=0x003fffff ); // only 23 bit values handled
  UFloatInt &fi = *(UFloatInt *)&fval;
  fi.f += Snapper;
  return ( (fi.i)&0x007fffff ) - 0x00400000;
}

There is one instruction to convert a floating point to an int in assembly: use the FISTP instruction. It pops the value off the floating-point stack, converts it to an integer, and then stores at at the address specified. I don't think there would be a faster way (unless you use extended instruction sets like MMX or SSE, which I am not familiar with).

Another instruction, FIST, leaves the value on the FP stack but I'm not sure it works with quad-word sized destinations.