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mmx instructions
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 7:25 pm
by Al-Arif bin Ozguxxx
Hi, everybody. I am just curious, my brother has asked my if I knew about mmx instructions, I think he'll use it for optimizing some c++ code, anyway is mmx support used anywhere in os development? BTW, I dont know anything about mmx stuff. Also do you know if mmx instructions can be used as inline asm in visual c++?
Re:mmx instructions
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:30 pm
by Schol-R-LEA
Actually, MMX (Multi-Media eXtension) instructions aren't likely to show up in OS development, except perhaps for OpenGL drivers. They are mostly used in video games, rendering, video mixing, and high performance audio-visual software.
Re:mmx instructions
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 4:05 am
by Pype.Clicker
the only thing a OS developer needs to worry about MMX is how to save/restore the MMX state at thread switches.
Re:mmx instructions
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 6:07 am
by Tim
The NT kernel seems to use MMX or XMM in its zero page thread, to zero pages quickly.