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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Petz who wrote (35318)	7/31/1998 12:47:00 AM
From: Kevin K. Spurway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573430

Paul is blowing smoke about Katmai--we won't see this chip until late in the first half of 1999, otherwise Intel would be trumpeting it all over the place. As far as Dixon is concerned--well, Dr. Engel is well aware that Intel considers it a mobile processor and won't introduce it to the desktop market until at least the middle of 1999--if at all--because it would benchmark better than a PII at the same clock speed for most applications! Maybe it will give the mobile K6-2 300 a bit of competition in the high end mobile market, though. Kevin

To: Petz who wrote (35318)	7/31/1998 1:07:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573430

Petz - Re: " Microsoft has a "TARGET" date of 2Q'99 to support Katmai with DirectX 7.0." AMD may have to rely on MicroSoft for a helping hand, but Intel is providing Katmai Instruction software support directly to developers in the form of Katmai Compiler plug ins for C++ . In that way, these developers can write graphics routines that directly incorporate the KNI - Katmai New Instructions - and not have to rely upon Microsoft's DirectX - which will ALSO SAVE one level in software procedure invocation. You can read about it right here. Paul {====================================} techweb.com Intel Finishes Beta Of Katmai Processor Instructions (05/07/98; 10:34 a.m. ET) By Anthony Cataldo, EE Times LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Intel completed the beta version of its instruction set for the Katmai processor and is now working with more than 50 software-game developers to optimize their code for 70 single-instruction, multiple-data (SIMD) floating-point instructions, the company said. At the same time, both Intel and Microsoft are providing low-level compiler tools for the new instruction set. The tools are considered a critical ingredient that was missing from Intel's previous MMX development program. Like other graphics-accelerator vendors present at the Computer Game Developers Conference here in Long Beach, Calif., Intel (company profile) said it hopes to woo 3-D game developers to optimize their software for what Intel expects to be the premier PC platform for 1999. Such a system will include the 100-MHz 440BX chip set, the i740 3-D graphics processor, and a Katmai processor running faster than 400 MHz, said Taufik Ma, independent software vendor marketing manager for Intel's Microprocessor 6 division, in Hillsboro, Ore. In 1996, Intel made a similar effort to convince software developers to write games geared for the MMX instruction set, which consisted of 57 new SIMD integer instructions. But the company said it failed to provide the right tools to make it easier for software developers. "We learned a lot from MMX," Ma said. "We didn't have compilers for MMX, which wasn't too pleasant for developers because they had to hand code everything." The Katmai compilers, which will be available later this year, will be offered as a plug-in for Microsoft's Visual C++ suite. The compiler will include instrinsics, which the company said will give developers the ability to write in C with nearly the same efficiency as hand-coded assembly language. A related tool called VTune will let the program make use of the parallelism of SIMD instructions, Ma said. What's more, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel will provide similar compiler tools for the MMX instruction set in July. Intel has already signed on 100 companies, Ma said. Ma said Intel has put three times more resources into Katmai compared with its MMX development efforts. This includes more engineering support, coding tools, authoring tools, libraries, and development platforms for software companies. Some of the software companies it has engaged with include Westwood Studios, id Software, Microsoft, LucasArts Entertainment, Activision, Definition Six, Shiny Entertainment, and Black Isle Studios. Meanwhile, Intel has released a software developer's kit for its i740 3-D graphics processor. The company said the new tools will enable software developers to monitor how systems partition the 3-D processing load between the graphics processor and central processing unit and make adjustments for better performance and system balance.