Key Functionality
Microsoft Specific
The 3DNow! technology instructions are intended to open a major processing bottleneck in a 3D graphics application: floating-point operations. Today's 3D applications are facing limitations because only one floating-point execution unit exists in the most advanced x86 processors. The front end of a typical 3D graphics software pipeline performs object physics, geometry transformations, clipping, and lighting calculations. These computations are very floating-point intensive and often limit the features and functionality of a 3D application.
The source of performance for the 3DNow! instructions originates from the single-instruction, multiple data (SIMD) implementation. With SIMD, each instruction not only operates on two single-precision, floating-point operands, but the microarchitecture within the processor can execute up to two 3DNow! instructions per clock through two register execution pipelines, which allows for a total of four floating-point operations per clock. In addition, because the 3DNow! instructions use the same floating-point registers as the MMX technology instructions, task switching between MMX and 3DNow! operations is eliminated.
The 3DNow! technology instruction set contains up to 26 instructions that support SIMD floating-point operations and includes SIMD integer operations, data prefetching, and faster MMX-to-floating-point switching. To improve MPEG decoding, the 3DNow! instructions include a specific SIMD integer instruction created to facilitate pixel-motion compensation. Because media-based software typically operates on large data sets, the processor often needs to wait for this data to be transferred from main memory. The extra time involved with retrieving this data can be avoided by using the 3DNow! instruction called PREFETCH. This instruction can ensure that data is in the level 1 cache when it is needed.
To improve the time it takes to switch between MMX and x87 code, the 3DNow! instructions include the fast entry/exit multimedia state (FEMMS) instruction, which eliminates much of the overhead involved with the switch. The addition of 3DNow! technology expands the capabilities of the AMD family of processors and enables a new generation of enriched user applications.
Enhanced 3DNow! technology instructions, first implemented on the AMD Athlon processor, provides 24 new 3DNow! Instructions. The Enhanced 3DNow! Technology consists of 5 new 3DNow! DSP instructions and 19 new MMX Extensions. Along with the new instructions, the AMD Athlon processor implements additional microarchitecture enhancements that enable more efficient operation of all these instructions, and programming can be simplified because there are fewer coding restrictions.