Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Another Annoying "How Do I Get Started" Question
From: Steve Harris (S.W.Harris_AT_ecs.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Jul 11 2001 - 20:18:03 EEST
On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 12:22:52PM -0400, Karl MacMillan wrote:
> > Also, although modern x86 chips have SIMD instructions, gcc won't generate
> > them (maybe in 3.0, I haven't checked), and the ones useful for audio
> > can't even be inlined with asm() yet (ditto).
> >
>
> This is not completely true - even though the default gcc does not support
> SIMD completely, there are patches for gcc available on www.altivec.org
> that allow you to use altivec (SIMD on the G4). There is a good chance
> that altivec will continue to be supported in some way or another with gcc
> thanks to Apple's involvement (gcc is the compiler that comes with Mac OS
> X developer package).
Yep, I just checked, thanks. gcc 3.0 does infact support SSE (the PIII's
SIMD set), as does (I think) the 2.4 kernel, but you have to do some bit
mangling to get it to work, and you have to write the asm code by hand
of course.
As far as I'm concerned though, that makes SSE out-of-bounds as only people
with gcc 3 and a 2.4 kernel will be able to build it, and bad things will
happen if you run the code on a 2.2 kernel. MMX should be fine however,
thats been supported for a while.
I don't have a G4, so I'm less concerened about that ;)
- Steve
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