Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 12:38:11 -0700 From: Don Wilde <don@PartsNow.com> To: Marty Leisner <leisner@sdsp.mc.xerox.com> Cc: Jacques Hugo <jacques@wired.ctech.ac.za>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: mmx or ppro Message-ID: <3443CA23.2697@PartsNow.com> References: <9710141846.AA00297@gnu.sdsp.mc.xerox.com>
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Since no software is written for MMX extensions, a PPro will work better than a Pentium/MMX, but a PentiumII will beat either, since a) it has larger caches and b) it has faster clock rates. Even if the software were compiled with MMX, only the X/graphics code would see improvement. There are very few situations where the MMX instructions are helpful, and there are some times when it could be actively harmful. MMX basically refers to the ability to use the floating-point registers to do simple adds and bit-masks to 8 bytes at a time instead of one 80-bit floating point number. 99.4% of all code doesn't fit this application. -- oooOOO O O O o * * * * * * o ___ _________ _________ ________ _________ _________ ___==_ V_=_=_DW ===--- Don Wilde [don@PartsNow.com] [http://www.PartsNow.com ] /oo0000oo-oo--oo-ooo---ooo-ooo---ooo-ooo--ooo-ooo---ooo-ooo---ooo-oo--oo
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