Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uflorida!haven!umd5!uvaarpa!babbage!mac3n From: mac3n@babbage.acc.virginia.edu (Alex Colvin) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: separate integer and float register Summary: cheap contexts Message-ID: <342@babbage.acc.virginia.edu> Date: 16 Aug 88 13:17:55 GMT References: <2724@wright.mips.COM> <6800002@modcomp> Organization: University of Virginia Lines: 13 > Special floating point registers also slow down context switching, due > to the extra time needed to save/restore them. Depends. In some systems the FP registers are only saved if they're going to be re-used. In a simple interrupt handler, where you promise not to touch FP, you leave them active. In other environments you make certain registers global, shared by all tasks & handlers, never saved. This assumes a lot of control over the code.