🚀 go-pugleaf

In message <31b36f63.1113871@news-win.rinet.ru> - minister@rinet.ru (Dmitriy
Veremeev)Tue, 4 Jun 1996 16:18:05 GMT writes:
:>
:>tlin@cyber1.servtech.com (terry lin) wrote:
:>
:>>Dmitriy Veremeev (minister@rinet.ru) wrote:
:>>: 
:>>: And, still there are very many programs that better use FPU, but can't
:>>: just for case of CPU w/o FPU or with incompatible one.. So the same
:>>: will be with MMX - there will be 5-7 applications supported it -
:>>: probably XING, maybe something like Photoshop, etc... But only a few!
:>>
:>>How about games?  Doesn't MMX help greatly with 24-bit color?  Mark Rein
:>>of Epic Megagames posted constantly in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action that
:>>MMX will allow for smooth 24-bit color games in 640x480. 
:>>
:>>As a pretty frequent gamer I am concerned that a Pentium purchased now,
:>>regarldess of how many Mhz, will be obsolete in a year.
:>>
:>>Anyone have more opinions on this?
:>
:>Hm.. What about games... Too many times I've heard from developers
:>"yes, we are making new products for your new XYZ OS, it will be
:>available in the near future, just wait for 2-3 month for game boost 
:>under XYZ OS". XYZ is Win 3.11,  Win 95, OS/2, etc, etc... 
:>What I see is DOS games w/o even FPU usage... The same situation does
:>exist in all the computer things. Software support is the biggest
:>problem for EVERY product, even if this product comes from Intel. 
:>Software companies (with specific exeptions), IMHO, cant afford
:>spending money on developing product that will be able to run at
:>0.001% of PCs to make it even 400% faster. It is not worth. 



Finally someone who learns from history :)  MMX will undoubtedly be a factor
in the future - the far future.  The market has a tremendous amount of
inertia.  The masses are not like most of the people who peruse this group -
they do not buy new systems or new motherboards (which most of them wouldnt
know what to do with anyway) every 12-18 months.  Look at the software market
now - with only a handfull of exceptions the games out there (even the new
ones) will run fine on a 486-100 with 8 megs of RAM.  And I do recall hearing
a bunch of crap a year or two ago about 'Pentium optimized' programs.  Of
course, a program which really needed and used Pentium code optimizing would
run like crap on a 486, so there just arent very many of them. 

:>Software support will appear only by the time when MMX will be at
:>least in 20-30% PCs. Before that, MMX support is going to be
:>implemented only in specific software like Photoshop or Xing or
:>something like this. That's my opinion.

Mine too.  I give it about 2 years before it becomes a real factor in
software... maybe 3 keeping in mind that it was only last summer (95) that the
number of Pentiums in use passed the number of 486s in use (over 2 years after
the Pentium intro).  Then consider that the US home market has 'peaked'
already, indicating that sales of PCs in the US will (have) slow down a bit
(Asian and Europen markets will supposedly take up the slack).  

Dan Davis
sunny@mem.net
davisd@next1.msci.memphis.edu


:>We will see.
:>BYE.
:>Yours, 
:>LodeRunner (Dmitry Veremeev). E-mail: minister@rinet.ru