Does the Pentium MMX Live up to the Expectations?

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DirectX Applications

The first disappointment about the new Pentium MMX is its DirectX, especially its Direct3D performance. It is hardly any better than the performance of a Pentium Classic. This wasn't expected by me, since MMX was meant to enhance DirectX directly. The Benchmarks were all run with the latest DirectX 3 drivers installed. Obviously the best improvement is seen in RGB mode. RAMP mode hardly shows any difference.

My Monster Truck Madness Benchmark didn't show any improve over the Pentium Classic at all. This is to be considered as fairly sad, because lots of gamers were hoping to save the purchase of a 3D enhanced Video Card, like e.g. the Diamond Monster3D, due to the MMX enhancements of the P55C. Obviously so far we can forget about this. Either Microsoft has to improve their DirectX, especially Direct3D drivers, or the games have to use MMX instructions directly.

Currently Windows 95 gamers certainly hardly benefit from MMX at all and they can stick to the cheaper Pentium Classic for now.

I found an explanation for this problem, which doesn't make MMX look too good for 3D freaks at all. It's the missing 32bit SIMD multiply option of MMX.

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