Intel ARCHITECTURE IA-32 User Manual

IA-32 Intel® Architecture Optimization
4-38
SSE3 provides an instruction LDDQU for loading from memory
address that are not 16 byte aligned. LDDQU is a special 128-bit
unaligned load designed to avoid cache line splits. If the address of the
load is aligned on a 16-byte boundary, LDQQU loads the 16 bytes
requested. If the address of the load is not aligned on a 16-byte
boundary, LDDQU loads a 32-byte block starting at the 16-byte aligned
address immediately below the address of the load request. It then
provides the requested 16 bytes. If the address is aligned on a 16-byte
boundary, the effective number of memory requests is implementation
dependent (one, or more).
LDDQU is designed for programming usage of loading data from
memory without storing modified data back to the same address. Thus,
the usage of LDDQU should be restricted to situations where no
store-to-load forwarding is expected. For situations where store-to-load
forwarding is expected, use regular store/load pairs (either aligned or
unaligned based on the alignment of the data accessed).
Example 4-29 Video Processing Using LDDQU to Avoid Cache Line Splits
// Average half-pels horizonally (on // the “x” axis),
// from one reference frame only.
nextLinesLoop:
lddqu xmm0, XMMWORD PTR [edx] // may not be 16B aligned
lddqu xmm0, XMMWORD PTR [edx+1]
lddqu xmm1, XMMWORD PTR [edx+eax]
lddqu xmm1, XMMWORD PTR [edx+eax+1]
pavgbxmm0, xmm1
pavgbxmm2, xmm3
movdqaXMMWORD PTR [ecx], xmm0 //results stored elsewhere
movdqaXMMWORD PTR [ecx+eax], xmm2
// (repeat ...)

Intel ARCHITECTURE IA-32 Specifications

General

Instruction Set	x86
Instruction Set Type	CISC
Memory Segmentation	Supported
Operating Modes	Real mode, Protected mode, Virtual 8086 mode
Max Physical Address Size	36 bits (with PAE)
Max Virtual Address Size	32 bits
Architecture	IA-32 (Intel Architecture 32-bit)
Addressable Memory	4 GB (with Physical Address Extension up to 64 GB)
Floating Point Registers	8 x 80-bit
MMX Registers	8 x 64-bit
SSE Registers	8 x 128-bit
Registers	General-purpose registers (EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, ESI, EDI, ESP, EBP), Segment registers (CS, DS, SS, ES, FS, GS), Instruction pointer (EIP), Flags register (EFLAGS)
Floating Point Unit	Yes (x87)