Intel Overview of New Instructions and Extensions
Microsoft Specific
The Pentium III Processor and other processors such as the Pentium processor with MMX technology and Pentium II processor have instructions to enable development of optimized multimedia applications. The instructions are implemented through extensions to previously implemented instructions. This technology uses the single-instruction, multiple-data (SIMD) technique. By processing data elements in parallel, applications with media-rich bitstreams can significantly improve performance by using SIMD instructions.
The most direct way to use these instructions is to inline the assembly language instructions into your source code. However, this can be time consuming and tedious. Instead, Intel provides easy implementation by using API extension sets, referred to as intrinsics.
Intrinsics Availability on Intel Processors
Processors |
MMX technology intrinsics |
Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) |
Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2) instructions |
|---|---|---|---|
Processors that support SSE2 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Pentium III |
Yes |
Yes |
Not available |
Pentium II |
Yes |
Not available |
Not available |
Pentium with MMX technology |
Yes |
Not available |
Not available |
Pentium Pro |
Not available |
Not available |
Not available |
Pentium |
Not available |
Not available |
Not available |
The following topics are covered: