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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.erols.net!worldnet.att.net!news.mathworks.com!enews.sgi.com!news.corp.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-200.sprintlink.net!helena.MT.net!not-for-mail From: nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD and MMX Date: 24 Mar 1997 19:31:17 GMT Organization: SRI Intl. - Montana Operations Lines: 29 Message-ID: <5h6kq5$2se@helena.MT.net> References: <5h63dn$tq@mitzi.rsmas.miami.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: trout.mt.sri.com X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test56 (2 Mar 97) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:37691 According to Ivan Lima <ivan@nauplius.rsmas.miami.edu>: >I'm thinking about upgrading my Pentium 75 to Pentium 125 using the >new Pentium overdrive processor with MMX. Does FreeBSD runs without >problem in the MMX processors? I have no personal experience with MMX processors, but since they're functionality is a super-set of the normal processors they should work fine (and there are quite a few reports of people happily running FreeBSD on MMX machines.) >Does anyone have any information on the >performace gains in FreeBSD when using MMX? The performance gain on MMX processors is almost completely due to doubling the size of the L1 cache on the chip, and little to do with the new MMX instructions. In other words, the 'MMX' instructions are worthless in FreeBSD (and most other multi-tasking OS's), but the double cache is a nice addition that increases performance. Nate -- nate@sri.com | Research Engineer, SRI Intl. - Montana Operations work #: (406) 457-9000 | nate@trout.mt.sri.com | An unfeatured document is a bug. home #: (406) 443-7063 | - John Polstra