Optimizing a read statement - arrays

Question

I have build a led cube using transistors, shift registers and an arduino nano (and it kinda works). I know shift registers may be a poor design choice but I have to work with what I got so please don't get stuck on that in your answers.
There is this piece of code:
bool input[32];
void resetLeds()
{
input[R1] = 0;
input[G1] = 0;
input[B1] = 0;
input[R2] = 0;
input[G2] = 0;
input[B2] = 0;
input[R3] = 0;
input[G3] = 0;
input[B3] = 0;
input[R4] = 0;
input[G4] = 0;
input[B4] = 0;
input[X1Z1] = 1;
input[X1Z2] = 1;
input[X1Z3] = 1;
input[X1Z4] = 1;
input[X2Z1] = 1;
input[X2Z2] = 1;
input[X2Z3] = 1;
input[X2Z4] = 1;
input[X3Z1] = 1;
input[X3Z2] = 1;
input[X3Z3] = 1;
input[X3Z4] = 1;
input[X4Z1] = 1;
input[X4Z2] = 1;
input[X4Z3] = 1;
input[X4Z4] = 1;
}
void loop()
{
T = micros();
for(int I = 0; I < 100; I++)
{
counter++;
if(counter >= 256 / DIVIDER) counter = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < 64; i += 4)
{
x = i / 16;
z = (i % 16) / 4;
resetLeds();
input[XZ[x][z]] = 0;
for(y = 0; y < 4; y++)
{
index = i + y;
if(counter < xyz[index][0]) input[Y[y][RED]] = 1;
if(counter < xyz[index][1]) input[Y[y][GREEN]] = 1;
if(counter < xyz[index][2]) input[Y[y][BLUE]] = 1;
}
PORTB = 0;
for(int j = 0; j < 32; j++)
{
bitWrite(OUT_PORT, 4, 0);
bitWrite(OUT_PORT, 3, input[j]);
PORTB = OUT_PORT;
bitWrite(OUT_PORT, 4, 1);
PORTB = OUT_PORT;
}
bitWrite(OUT_PORT, 0, 1);
PORTB = OUT_PORT;
}
}
T = micros() - T;
Serial.println(T / 100);
}
The runtime of a single iteration is reported to be 1274 microseconds, but I need it to be even lower to build a pwm function of sorts (manually turning a transistor on and off through a shift register). While optimizing I found this strange behavior I cannot explain. There is this line in the code:
bitWrite(OUT_PORT, 3, input[j]);
When I remove this line or change input[j] to 0 the runtime is halved. Apparently, an array lookup takes about 20 microseconds. But I find it very weird since I am indexing this array in more places in the code (when writing) and there it takes 23 microseconds for 28 writes.
Can somebody please explain to me what is going on and/or how to make this piece of code run faster? I guess you can do writes in a pipelined manner but a read stalls the code completely since you cannot continue before you receive the value from cache. But then again, I hardly doubt a read from cache should take 23 whole microseconds.
[EDIT 27/10/2020 16:55]
The part of the code that writes to the shiftregisters has a lot of bitWrites which are time consuming. Instead of writing the bits every time I implemented preconfigured options for the byte to write to PORTB:
PORTB = LATCH_LOW;
for(int j = 0; j < 32; j++)
{
if(input[j] == 0)
{
PORTB = CLOCK_OFF_DATA_0;
PORTB = CLOCK_ON_DATA_0;
}
else
{
PORTB = CLOCK_OFF_DATA_1;
PORTB = CLOCK_ON_DATA_1;
}
}
PORTB = LATCH_HIGH;
This cuts my running time roughly in half, which is kind of fast enough but I wonder I could get it to run even faster. When I remove everything from the loop except for the writing to the shift registers and I remove the input[j] read, I get a runtime of 200 microseconds. This means that if I could remove dependence on the input[j] read and compute its value inline I should be able to get at least another 2 times speed up. To achieve 8 bit PWM I calculated I need the running time to be 40 microseconds or less so I am going to stick with 16 (instead of 256) brightness levels for now to prevent flicker.
[EDIT 28/10/2020 19:38]
I went into the platform.txt and change the optimization flag to -Ofast. This got my iteration time down another 200 microseconds!