The results are finally available !

[yg@localhost test6_bigLFSR]$ ./test.sh 
Simple gate version setup (RAM+time) :
290 4260 0:00.00
580 4528 0:00.00
1160 4800 0:00.00
2030 5576 0:00.00
2900 6132 0:00.00
5800 8272 0:00.01
11600 12296 0:00.02
20300 18568 0:00.03
29000 24744 0:00.05
58000 45264 0:00.09
116000 86364 0:00.18
203000 148588 0:00.30
290000 210440 0:00.44
580000 417476 0:00.91
1160000 831120 0:01.77
2030000 1451852 0:03.11
Detailed gate version setup (RAM+time) :
290 5480 0:00.00
580 6652 0:00.01
1160 8668 0:00.01
2030 12052 0:00.03
2900 15336 0:00.04
5800 26764 0:00.08
11600 49428 0:00.16
20300 83392 0:00.28
29000 117340 0:00.39
58000 230732 0:00.79
116000 457372 0:01.53
203000 797488 0:02.70
290000 1137588 0:03.81
580000 2270924 0:07.51
1160000 4538012 0:15.17
2030000 7938396 0:27.71
Benchmark : OK

I wanted to test several things :

• Time and RAM are roughly linear so it's a good news. Note that this is only the setup performance.
• Setup time is 10× with the detailed version, and I don't even run an iteration !
• The detailed version uses about 6× more RAM, but that amounts to about 4KB for a single gate !

This means that with 16GB RAM, it is possible to simulate approx. 20M gates and analyse 3M gates.

You can run this test manually with the newer archives. It's a stress test for the system and the behaviour will change depending on your computer configuration. I don't assume your CPU speed or RAM size, so run it cautiously.
---------------------------------------

Update 20201121:

I managed to run the design inside the wrapper, and the overhead is marginal (5% size, <10% time)

290 5516 0:00.00
580 6808 0:00.01
1160 9200 0:00.01
2030 12676 0:00.03
2900 16228 0:00.04
5800 28088 0:00.08
11600 51880 0:00.17
20300 87528 0:00.29
29000 123120 0:00.41
58000 241696 0:00.78
116000 479028 0:01.55
203000 835028 0:02.78
290000 1191172 0:03.92
580000 2377824 0:07.98

The graphs will be auto-generated if you have installed gnuplot on your system.

I still have to perform dynamic comparisons and I have not even started re-implementing the gates probes.

Anyway the 10x speed&size gain with the "simple" version vindicates the choice and efforts to make 2 versions.