Hi there, I use Borland 5.01, which isnt uptodate anymore. I was wondering where i can get math libraries which support the 3DNOW(MMX) and the intel one SIMMD i think? Or arent there any ? If not where can i learn how to use these accelerations? Thanx in advance The Mummy

3DNow! isn''t MMX. 3DNow! is AMD''s floating point instruction extension. MMX is Intel''s integer instruction extension.
Intel''s new floatign point extension is called SSE, which is a kind of SIMD (single instruction multiple data) instruction set.

Basically you have to program that stuff in assembly for now.
However most people with those kinds of CPUs have downloaded drivers that take advantage of either 3DNow! or SSE, so they will already see performance benefits in their games anyways.

Will there be perfomance benefits when i compile with the standard math lib?
Or do you talk about APIs which were adjusted to detect the the CPUS and use the accelerations?

A standard program that uses 3d acceleration will see beneifits on a extended instruction cpu that has updated drivers, because the updated drivers perform optimized functions for you. You simply have to offload as much computation as possible onto the hardware.

No special APIs necessary. If the drivers are updated, there will be a performance increase.

If you want to take advantage of either SSE or 3DNow!, you have to code it in assembly. There is essentially no standard math routine that would benefit from optimization, as both SSE and 3DNow! are SIMD instruction extensions.

actually, I have to disagree slightly : I know AMD, at least, has a library of typical functions (3D-related and otherwise) that have been coded in ASM to support 3dnow. Check out the tech documents at www.amd.com.



- Remnant
- (Steve Schmitt)

Hi,
Thanks for the hint
I found it!!!



Edited by - TheMummy on 1/30/00 5:03:07 AM