[the8472]

The standard pattern for working with atomics in java (volatiles are of limited use without atomic field updaters or varhandles) is to read it into a local variable, operate on that and only write it back to the volatile once you're done.

That has many benefits, among them the ability to store its value in registers.

[nullwasamistake]

For primitives Java uses special CPU instructions. In the Atomic* package. It's not recommended for plain objects.