Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 12:34:54 -0500 (EST) From: John D Duncan <jddst19+@pitt.edu> To: Archie Cobbs <archie@whistle.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: what does MMX mean? Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96L.980115123204.14290A-100000@unixs-eval.cis.pitt.edu> In-Reply-To: <199801142355.PAA05051@bubba.whistle.com>
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The MMX instructions, as far as I can gather, are a new set of
instructions to provide parallel-style computation on packed registers
of 64-bit words. These instructions are intended to speed up repetative
computation such as a binary xor of a constant against four 16-bit
words by performing the computation simultaneously on all four rather
than looping through the computations.
The normal integer and floating-point datapaths are, i believe,
unaffected.
-John
==============
jddst19+@pitt.edu John Duncan
Freshman, University of Pittsburgh
"I'm not a doctor, but I ate one at the UPMC..."
On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Archie Cobbs wrote:
>
> What, exactly, does MMX mean?
>
> Does it mean the processor has NEW instructions for DSP type operations?
> Does it speed up EXISTING instructions? Integer or floating point (or both)?
>
> Thanks,
> -Archie
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> Archie Cobbs * Whistle Communications, Inc. * http://www.whistle.com
>
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