Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] MMX, SSE, SSE2, 3DNOW
From: Robert Schrem (robert.schrem_AT_WiredMinds.de)
Date: Mon Feb 18 2002 - 21:07:28 EET
Hi,
And how would you integrate AltiVec for Power-PC?
Into the >plugin interface< or into the >plugins<?
- Robert
On Monday 18 February 2002 19:32, Bob Colwell wrote:
> "wacky sub-architectures?" I beg to differ. :-)
>
> There are really only 4, and I think I can argue them down to two, at
> least for Intel boxes.
>
> In the beginning was the Intel 386, and its pipelined younger brother
> the 486. And between Intel and AMD, a lot of those chips got sold and
> most of the world loved them for it.
>
> Then came the Pentium, and with its 2nd generation, the MMX integer
> SIMD instructions. Pentium II also included MMX.
>
> Next came the Pentium III, which had MMX and the single
> precision version of MMX, called SSE. I'm leaving out the Pentium Pro
> because those chips shipped mainly into servers.
>
> Then came the Pentium 4, with MMX, SSE, and the double-precision version
> of SSE, called SSE2.
>
> This progression occurred because of the algorithm being followed at
> Intel: put in whatever fits, and make sure the memory bandwidth to
> support it is there.
>
> I'll be really surprised if enough interesting sound work was being
> done on 386's and 486's that we need to even remember those. In fact,
> are there really enough Pentium boxes remaining in the field to care
> about them and their MMX-only capability?
>
> I'm not so sure about Pentium II machines, which were shipped as high
> as 400 MHz, and might be still fast enough and widely enough used that
> we still care about them in this context.
>
> To look at all this another way, what's the problem if we restrict our
> attention here to just Pentium III and newer designs? If the new
> instruction sets are enough of a win to ever use, then they're also
> enough of a win to entice people to buy up. They have to, sooner or
> later.
>
> -Bob Colwell
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu
> [mailto:owner-linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu]On Behalf Of Steve
> Harris
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 7:23 AM
> To: linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu
> Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] MMX, SSE, SSE2, 3DNOW
>
> On Sat, Feb 16, 2002 at 09:09:24 +0100, Alexander Ehlert wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > AFAIK there are no flags whatsoever to indicate which processor a plugin
> > might use. So if someone wants to hack a plugin that uses SSE
> > instructions and someone else tries to use that on a host without SSE
> > support -> crash. So wouldn't it be good to add some architecture flags,
> > that could be queried by the host?
>
> So far, I have only distributed binaries in RPM only, which has
> architecture dependencies. Actually they are wrongly labelled as i386,
> they are really i686.
>
> I don't think the plugin should pick a code block based on some detection
> code, that would make the plugins image larger, and therefore less
> efficient. There are far too many wacky sub-architectures of x86's to
> include SIMD instructions for all of them in one binary.
>
> I have plyed with multi-format binaries (see mail later today), and it is
> tricky.
>
> I think the right thing to do is to take the same approach as with normal
> libraries and binaries, and label the packages.
>
> - Steve
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