mips_proc wrote:
...
that altivec is just a SIMD... and yes it's a highly optomiosed SIMD... but it's much better for improveing benchmarks then actually doing anything practical.
e.g running Apps.
Word processing probably has no use for SIMD, but then again, it doesn't have much use for MHz either. On the other hand, DSP and image processing type applications can get a v. nice boost from it.
Problem is, you have to compile the apps to use it. Otherwise it's like having a floating point unit, but running apps compiled for an integer only prior version of the cpu.
A lot of stuff you may run on a PIV these days is compiled for PII, and you just don't get the kind of oomph you'd get if the code was compiled for the machine it ran on.
Hopefully, apps that could benefit from SIMD will ship with an Altivec optimized version as well as the G3 version, in the same way we get our 68000, 68020, and 68040 executables now.
