= Conway's Game of Life (SIMDitized) =

== Objective ==
This project is a demonstration on how to ''creatively'' use SSE*
instructions to implement [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_game_of_life Conway's Game of Life].


== Optimizations ==
 * use of SSE2 instructions (obviously)
 * can be expanded to using different MP techniques such as posix threads and [wiki:OpenMP OpenMP], to get the best performance.  The inner processing loop was constructed to minimize dependencies.
 * some crafty [wiki:BitPacking bit packing] that I came up with.  This reduces memory bandwidth.
 * Minimal [wiki:BranchPrediction branching] using equality SSE instructions. 
== This is Work in Progress ==
I'm still working on user input, and possible different methods of visualization.  Right now, the application supports the following modes:

Go here for [wiki:Installation installation instructions].

Life still has many [wiki:Limitations].

== Executables ==
 *  '''`lifebench` '''
    Benchmark mode (no visualization).  used in conjunction with `time` to get statistics on how long `n` iterations take to run.
 * '''`lifeglut`'''
    OpenGL implementation with GLUT.  This is the primary method of displaying the world.  I intend on adding user input with the mouse, and making it scale and zoom in and out.  If somebody wants to convert this to SDL for me, go ahead.
 * '''`lifeconsole`'''
    `stdout` implementation that represents a 128x128 block with with `@`'s and `.`'s
    '''this is broken at the moment'''

== Information on `fakesse.h` ==
You can find out here: [wiki:FakeSSE fakesse]

== Note on Hashing ==
Considerations were not taken as far as hashing algorithms go, so don't ask (but if you want to implement it for me, go ahead).