3 ms·

It was more that Voodoo than the MMX. I tried playing some MMX "accelerated" games and it was a lo-fi slideshow. I think the MMX era was the start of Intel's t

It was more that Voodoo than the MMX. I tried playing some MMX "accelerated" games and it was a lo-fi slideshow. I think the MMX era was the start of Intel's tradition of hyped up graphics related press releases followed by a total lack of execution.

tomc1985 8y ago
MMX was always more selling point than substance, from my experience... a Voodoo card, on the other hand...
rasz 8y ago
MMX was useless for games. MMX is Integer math only, good for DSP, things like audio filters, or making a softmodem out of your sound card. Unsuitable for accelerating 3D games. Whats worse MMX has no dedicated registers, and instead reuses/shares FPU ones, this means you cant use MMX and FPU (all 3D code pre Direct3D 7 Hardware T&L) at the same time. All comes down to Microsoft and Intel coming up with a concept of purely software peripherals around 1997. Intel released things like MMX, AC'97, Communications and Networking Riser (CNR), and audio/modem riser (AMR) standards, all in an effort to push hardware vendors out of the market by handling those roles in software by the CPU. More work for CPU = more demand for fast CPUs = more profit. Funnily enough AMDs 1998 3DNow! did actually add floating point support to MMX and was useful for 3D acceleration until hardware T&L came along 2 years later. Intel Paid few dev houses to release make believe MMX enhancements, like POD (1997) https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-front-cover.jpg https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-... 1/6 of box covered with Intel MMX advertising while game used it only for some sound effects. Intel repeated this trick in 99 while introducing Pentium 3 with SSE. Intel commissioned Rage Software to build a demo piece showcasing P3 during Comdex Fall. It worked .. by cheating with graphic details ;-) Quoting hardware.fr "But looking closely at the demo, we notice - as you can see on the screenshots - that the SSE version is less detailed than the non-SSE version (see the ground). Intel would you try to roll the journalists in the flour?". Of course Anandtech used this never released publicly cheating demo pretending to be a game in all of their Pentium 3 tests for over a year. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=65247&start=20#p734738 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=65247&start=20#p...

tomc1985 8y ago

MMX was always more selling point than substance, from my experience... a Voodoo card, on the other hand...

rasz 8y ago

MMX was useless for games. MMX is Integer math only, good for DSP, things like audio filters, or making a softmodem out of your sound card. Unsuitable for accelerating 3D games. Whats worse MMX has no dedicated registers, and instead reuses/shares FPU ones, this means you cant use MMX and FPU (all 3D code pre Direct3D 7 Hardware T&L) at the same time. All comes down to Microsoft and Intel coming up with a concept of purely software peripherals around 1997. Intel released things like MMX, AC'97, Communications and Networking Riser (CNR), and audio/modem riser (AMR) standards, all in an effort to push hardware vendors out of the market by handling those roles in software by the CPU. More work for CPU = more demand for fast CPUs = more profit. Funnily enough AMDs 1998 3DNow! did actually add floating point support to MMX and was useful for 3D acceleration until hardware T&L came along 2 years later. Intel Paid few dev houses to release make believe MMX enhancements, like POD (1997) https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-front-cover.jpg https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-... 1/6 of box covered with Intel MMX advertising while game used it only for some sound effects. Intel repeated this trick in 99 while introducing Pentium 3 with SSE. Intel commissioned Rage Software to build a demo piece showcasing P3 during Comdex Fall. It worked .. by cheating with graphic details ;-) Quoting hardware.fr "But looking closely at the demo, we notice - as you can see on the screenshots - that the SSE version is less detailed than the non-SSE version (see the ground). Intel would you try to roll the journalists in the flour?". Of course Anandtech used this never released publicly cheating demo pretending to be a game in all of their Pentium 3 tests for over a year. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=65247&start=20#p734738 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=65247&start=20#p...