Subject: Re: Intel PIII SIMD instructions
To: None <sommerfeld@orchard.arlington.ma.us>
From: Simon Burge <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 10/18/2000 13:03:23
Bill Sommerfeld wrote:

> > Does anonyone know when Intel P3 SIMD instructions will be supported
> > in NetBSD? Or more specifically, the saving of the "fpu" state 
> > in "npx.c" (there are now an additional 8 128-bit registers).  
> 
> This is something of a chicken and egg problem... if there's no code
> out there which wants to use the SSE extensions, the folks writing the
> kernel code don't have any reason to implement the context switch code
> needed for it when everyone's breathing down their neck for other
> features like kernel threads and multiprocessor support ;-)

Is it possible/likely that some linux program will show up using
MMX features that someone will want to run under emulation?

Simon.
--
Simon Burge                            <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
NetBSD Sales, Support and Service:  http://www.wasabisystems.com/