I didn’t find information about performance issues with auto_ptr and shared_ptr(I use tr1 implementation). As shared_ptr is more complicated compared to auto_ptr so auto_ptr is faster? So in general question sounds like what can you say about performance of shared_ptr with comparison with auto_ptr?
PS: I know that now unique_ptr is preferable than auto_ptr, but not all compilers support it, so question is about auto_ptr and shared_ptr
When dereferencing there are no performance differences.
If you allocate your shared_ptr’s with make_shared you don’t waste any heap allocations.
When copying the pointer (not the object), a shared_ptr is a little bit slower because it needs to increase it’s reference counter.
However, these probably does not matter, so stick with shared_ptr combined with make_shared.