created: 05/29/2002; revised: 11/16/2002, 12/04/2003, 11/23/2014, 06/02/2016, 08/06/2020, 05/03/21

CHAPTER 31 — Floating Point Arithmetic on MIPS

MIPS chips use the IEEE 754 floating point standard, both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions. However these notes cover only the 32 bit instructions. The 64 bit versions are similar.

SPIM Settings for this chapter: set SPIM to allow pseudoinstructions, disable branch delays, and disable load delays.

Chapter Topics:

Floating point registers
Loading and storing floating point registers
Single and (some) double precision arithmetic
Data movement instructions
Reading and writing floating point

QUESTION 1:

The 64 bit (double precision) floating point numbers are better than 32 bit (single precision). But how are they better?

Increased Precision?
Greater Range of values covered?
Both?