[comp.windows.ms] 80287 in WINDOWS

fritz@urz.unibas.ch (11/07/90)

Hello

I have a simple question and didn't find any answer yet.

Does WINDOWS 3 make any use of a numeric coprocessor (80X87) ?

In the \system directory there is a 87emu.dll, but I don't know
what it does. I didn't notice any difference in speed before
and after I had installed the 80287 either.

Oliver Fritz, University of Basel, Switzerland

timur@seas.gwu.edu (The Time Traveler) (11/08/90)

In article <1990Nov7.135353.1157@urz.unibas.ch> fritz@urz.unibas.ch writes:
>Hello
>
>I have a simple question and didn't find any answer yet.
>
>Does WINDOWS 3 make any use of a numeric coprocessor (80X87) ?
>
>In the \system directory there is a 87emu.dll, but I don't know
>what it does. I didn't notice any difference in speed before
>and after I had installed the 80287 either.
>
I don't think Windows itself uses an '87, because I think all of its
graphics routines can be written with integer arithmetic.  OS/2 has some
other graphic primitives (like bezier splines) which might not be possible
to write with integer math, so maybe OS/2 will show a speed increase.

However, I think it's the applications under Windows that benefit.  
Obviously, Excel does.  I heard that Pagemaker does too (can anyone
substantiate this?)  You probably won't find much of an increase unless
you start running really large, math-intesive applications, like large
spreadsheets, CAD programs, and stuff like Mathematica.

------------------------------------------------------------ The Time Traveler
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