On May 18, 2006, at 10:19 PM, Olof Johansson wrote:

quoted

 - Lack of data stream instructions. Until now, it was assumed that
those were tied to the presence
   of an Altivec (and they are documented in the Altivec manual).  
Maybe
we should split that to a
   new bit. I don't know if existing applications use them though, if
they do, there will be a
   problem to get them updated as the new bit isn't present on older
kernels...

I'm assuming you mean the instructions described under "AltiVec Memory
Bandwidth Management" in secion 5.2 of the Altivec PEM -- dst, dstt,
dstst, dss and dssall?

They are nops on the Cell though.  They are also microcoded on the 970.

If you're referring to the extended dcbt that includes streaming hints
(as documented in the 64-bit PEM, but not in PPC book2 2.02), then a
separate bit is likely needed -- obviously at least 970 seems to
implement them.

Yes they are implemented on the 970.

Thanks,
Andrew Pinski