pctechguide.com

  • Home
  • Guides
  • Tutorials
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • Glossary
  • Contact

AMD 3DNow

With the launch of K6-2, in May 1998, AMD stole something of a march on Intel, whose similar Katmai technology was not due for release until up to a year later, in the first half of 1999. By the end of March 1999 the installed base of 3DNow! technology-enhanced PCs was estimated to have reached about 14 million systems worldwide.

By improving the processor’s ability to handle floating-point calculations, 3DNow! technology closed the growing performance gap between processor and graphics accelerator performance – and eliminated the bottleneck at the beginning of the graphics pipeline. This cleared the way for dramatically improved 3D and multimedia performance.

Processing in the graphics pipeline can be viewed as comprising four stages:

  • Physics: The CPU performs floating-point-intensive physics calculations to create simulations of the real world and the objects in it
  • Geometry: Next, the CPU transforms mathematical representations of objects into three-dimensional representations, using floating point intensive 3D geometry
  • Setup: The CPU starts the process of creating the perspective required for a 3D view, and the graphics accelerator completes it
  • Rendering: Finally, the graphics accelerator applies realistic textures to computer-generated objects, using per-pixel calculations of colour, shadow, and position.

Each 3DNow! instruction handles two floating-point operands, and the K6-2 micro-architecture allows it to execute two 3DNow! instructions per clock cycle, giving a total of four floating-point operations per cycle. The K6-2’s multimedia units combine the existing MMX instructions, which accelerate integer-intensive operations, with the new 3DNow! instructions, and both types can execute simultaneously. Of course, with graphics cards which accelerate 3D in hardware, a great deal of 3D rendering is already being done off the CPU. However, with many 3D hardware solutions, that still leaves a lot of heavily floating-point intensive work at the front-end stages of the 3D graphics pipeline – scene generation and geometry mainly, but also triangle setup. Intel’s P6 architecture, as used in Pentium II and Celeron, has always been particularly strong in this area, leaving AMD, Cyrix and IBM behind. The new 3DNow! instruction redress the balance with Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) floating-point operations to enhance 3D geometry setup and MPEG decoding.

3DNow!

A wide range of application types benefited from 3DNow! technology, which was also licensed by Cyrix and IDT/Centaur for use in their processors. As well as games, these included VRML web sites, CAD, speech recognition and software DVD decoding. Performance was further boosted by use with Microsoft’s DirectX 6.0, released in the summer of 1998, which included routines to recognise and get the most out of the new instruction set. Future versions of the OpenGL API were also be optimised for 3DNow!

  • AMD K6
  • AMD K6-2
  • AMD 3DNow
  • AMD K6-3
  • AMD Athlon
  • AMD 750 Chipset
  • AMD Thunderbird
  • AMD Duron
  • AMD Palomino
  • AMD Morgan
  • AMD Thoroughbred
  • AMD Barton
  • AMD HyperTransport
  • AMD Hammer
  • AMD Athlon 64
  • AMD Sempron
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2
  • AMD Socket AM2
  • Barcelona, AMD’s native Quad Core CPU

Filed Under: AMD technology

Latest Articles

Top American E-Commerce Stores as of 2017

Typically when we talk about e-commerce, we mean businesses that happen right on the web. In the U.S., e-commerce sales are growing about 10% a year topped by world-famous American sites like Amazon and eBay. Most of the bulk of their sales generally come from mobile gadgets which started to boom in … [Read More...]

DAT Tape Storage

DAT stands for Digital Audio Tape and, as its name implies, was originally conceived as a CD-quality audio format. In 1998, Sony and HP defined the DDS (Digital Data Storage) standard, transforming the format into one that could be used for … [Read More...]

Creating Colour in LCD Displays

In order to create the shades required for a full-colour display, there have to be some intermediate levels of brightness between all-light and no-light passing through. The varying levels of brightness required to create a full-colour display is achieved by changing the strength of the … [Read More...]

Best Laptops for Professional Writers in 2023

If you need a new laptop as a writer, you may find yourself bewildered by all the choices. For one thing, there are so many brands to choose from. … [Read More...]

What You Need to Know About Automation with Chrome

Automation is drastically changing the way we interact with the Internet. One survey found that 76% of businesses use automation to streamline … [Read More...]

9 Steps to Take When Building a Web Scraper in Python

Web scraping is a method for collecting, organizing and analyzing information that is spread over the Internet in a disorganized way. It can … [Read More...]

8 Steps To Streamline Your Business Operations with Virtual Data Rooms

With the increased reliance on networking and cloud computing, businesses generate and store an ever-increasing amount of sensitive information. As a … [Read More...]

Advantages and disadvantages of using Perl in web programming

Web pages are designed using programming codes and a number of technologies as tools to achieve the desired objectives. An example of the above … [Read More...]

Why Cross-Chain Trading Is the Future of Crypto Investing?

The rapid growth and evolution of the cryptocurrency market have opened up exciting opportunities for investors. Within this dynamic landscape, … [Read More...]

Guides

  • Computer Communications
  • Mobile Computing
  • PC Components
  • PC Data Storage
  • PC Input-Output
  • PC Multimedia
  • Processors (CPUs)

Recent Posts

CD-ROM Blue Book – cdrom rom

The Blue Book defines the Enhanced Music CD specification for multisession pressed disc (i.e. not recordable) comprising … [Read More...]

Sell Cell Phone – Quick Ways to Sell your Iphone or Any Phone

You got that brand new shinny toy and chances are you have already put it to use.  It's likely you are reading this on that nice sexy piece of … [Read More...]

When To Move To A Dedicated Server

The right time to move to a dedicated server often isn't that obvious. Essentially, when a shared environment is no longer providing the … [Read More...]

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2023 About | Privacy | Contact Information | Wrtie For Us | Disclaimer | Copyright License | Authors