AltiVec can be used to accelerate many things: For instance OWB uses altivec to accelerate video decoding. z.library (shared zlib) has AltiVec acceration that is used by ALL applications using the library to decode gzip data (including png.library and thus PNG datatype). jfif.library has AltiVec acceleration (jpeg datatype uses jfif.library). Raggae multimedia multimedia framework uses AltiVec. Some low level graphics operations such as alpha blending and scaling and 3D are AltiVec accelerated as well. PowerSDL uses AltiVec when available. AHI software volume control (Mac HW) is AltiVec accelerated. Since these operations are in the OS itself it doesn't matter if the application supports AltiVec or not: All applications benefit automagically.
Various applications themselves use AltiVec too, such as Ambient, mplayer and ShowGirls.
That all sounds
rocking awesome!I didn't realize altivec could be used to speed up compression/decompression. (?)
Has anyone ever published any timing tests of z.library and png.library using / not using altivec?
I assume it only provides a small speed boost in those cases? <=10% ?
