> -----Original Message-----
> From: Warp [mailto:war### [at] tagpovrayorg]
>   At least in the past Intel processors had the strange rule that you
> cannot
> use the FPU and the SSE unit at the same time. I don't know if they
> have
> fixed that limitation later.

No, you had to switch modes (and deal with saving state et al).  Mainly
because... wait for it...  it's the same unit!

X87 and SSE both use the same units on the processor.  Even MMX shared
the same units (to some extremely limited extent).  You can't use them
both at the same time, because of the operating mode (like 16bit and
32bit code, you can't run them both at the same time, though you *could*
switch between them).

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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