6 Apr
2006
6 Apr
'06
5:15 p.m.
On 4/6/2006 at 6:49 PM Jerome H. Fine wrote:
As for the use of the mmx instructions, I thought
that they allow for the use of 64 bit registers.
Doesn't that correspond to:
long long integer ivalue
Yes, but not quite--you can pack those 64 bits several ways, with bytes,
16-bit words, 32-bit words or 64 bit words. Although limited to integer
applications, MMX does have some interesting non-graphics applications,
offering substantial performance improvements over the native x86
instruction set. In particular, the application to modular arithmetic and
the optional "clipping" aspect of the arithmetics--and the SIMD nature of
the instructions look interesting. Here's a good overview:
http://www.tommesani.com/MMXPrimer.html
I'm not sure when MMX entered the world, so this may not qualify as
"Vintage".
Cheers,
Chuck