yjkim@milton.u.washington.edu (Yong Kim) (07/11/90)
I am wondering whether the graphical display will fly with the help of Math coprocessor. Screen updates and drawing graphical image will involve a lot of number crunching. Do you have any second thought? I checked the manual, but it does not mention anything about the coprocessor. Please let me know the TRUTH, nothing but the TRUTH. Thanks
brianf@umd5.umd.edu (Brian Farmer) (07/11/90)
In article <4937@milton.u.washington.edu> yjkim@milton.u.washington.edu (Yong Kim) writes: >I am wondering whether the graphical display will fly with the help of >Math coprocessor. Screen updates and drawing graphical image will >involve a lot of number crunching. Do you have any second thought? I >checked the manual, but it does not mention anything about the >coprocessor. Please let me know the TRUTH, nothing but the TRUTH. >Thanks Only if a program takes advantage of the FP chip will you see any speed increase. Windows itself will not speed up if you have a coprocessor. Moving of bitmaps or windows usually involves byte copies not floating point math.
ezk@cunixe.cc.columbia.edu (Erez "HWank1" Zadok) (07/13/90)
In article <6860@umd5.umd.edu> brianf@umd5.umd.edu (Brian Farmer) writes: > In article <4937@milton.u.washington.edu> yjkim@milton.u.washington.edu (Yong Kim) writes: > >I am wondering whether the graphical display will fly with the help of > >Math coprocessor. Screen updates and drawing graphical image will [...] > Only if a program takes advantage of the FP chip will you see any speed > increase. Windows itself will not speed up if you have a coprocessor. > Moving of bitmaps or windows usually involves byte copies not floating > point math. Can a math co-processor do integer arithmetic? If so (or even if it can only do floating-point arithmetic), can that be used somehow in next releases of win3 to speed up some operations? Just wandering, Erez. A wank's morning starts one machine | Arpa: ezk@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu clock cycle after midnight. | Usenet: ...!rutgers!columbia!cunixf!ezk -HebrewWank #1 (US meaning, not UK!) | Bitnet: ezk@cunixf, erzus@cuvmb
patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree) (07/14/90)
In article <1990Jul12.202607.22144@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> ezk@cunixe.cc.columbia.edu (Erez "HWank1" Zadok) writes: > In article <4937@milton.u.washington.edu> yjkim@milton.u.washington.edu (Yong Kim) writes: >>I am wondering whether the graphical display will fly with the help of >>Math coprocessor. Screen updates and drawing graphical image will The only way the Math Coprocessor would help is if you waited until the last minute to do all floating point to integer conversions (that is, if there are any floating point numbers in your calculations). Times when there might be a lot of floating point numbers when manipulating graphics is when a different coordinate system is used (e.g. HIMETRIC, LOMETRIC, HIENGLISH, LOENGLISH). Be forwarned, though, that you might find computers that don't have co-processor's to be considerably slow when running a program compiled to use the co-processor. >Can a math co-processor do integer arithmetic? If so (or even if it can >only do floating-point arithmetic), can that be used somehow in next >releases of win3 to speed up some operations? As mentioned above, non-co-processor machines must go through co-processor emulation in order to perform floating point mathmatics. This can slow down the speed of a program, considerably should there be a lot of floating point math. This being the case, Microsoft would have to supply two versions of all DLL's and of the win program itself, one for those that have the co-processor, one for those that don't. Needless to say, this could get confusing. -- "Organized fandom is composed of a bunch of nitpickers with a thing for trivial pursuit." -Harlan Ellison Patrick Deupree -> patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us
michaelt@microsoft.UUCP (Michael THURLKILL) (07/17/90)
In article <4937@milton.u.washington.edu> yjkim@milton.u.washington.edu (Yong Kim) writes: >I am wondering whether the graphical display will fly with the help of >Math coprocessor. Screen updates and drawing graphical image will >involve a lot of number crunching. Do you have any second thought? I >checked the manual, but it does not mention anything about the >coprocessor. Please let me know the TRUTH, nothing but the TRUTH. >Thanks Windows uses integer arithmetic exclusively. There are well defined algorithms to generate curves and other graphic images that might otherwise require floating point calculations, and I believe the integer algorithms are faster than the floating point algorithms, even on machines with co-processors. That last is an issue for the graphics gods though. Anyway, normal Windows operation won't improve with the addition of a co-processor. However, any applications that do floating point operations (like Excel) will benefit. Mike Thurlkill Disclaimer: These are my opinions. They should not be mis-construed as being correct or as having any relation to my employer.