FXSAVE — Save x87 FPU, MMX Technology, and SSE State

Instruction Operand Encoding ¶

Description ¶

Saves the current state of the x87 FPU, MMX technology, XMM, and MXCSR registers to a 512-byte memory location specified in the destination operand. The content layout of the 512 byte region depends on whether the processor is operating in non-64-bit operating modes or 64-bit sub-mode of IA-32e mode.

Bytes 464:511 are available to software use. The processor does not write to bytes 464:511 of an FXSAVE area.

The operation of FXSAVE in non-64-bit modes is described first.

Non-64-Bit Mode Operation ¶

Table 3-43 shows the layout of the state information in memory when the processor is operating in legacy modes.

The destination operand contains the first byte of the memory image, and it must be aligned on a 16-byte boundary. A misaligned destination operand will result in a general-protection (#GP) exception being generated (or in some cases, an alignment check exception [#AC]).

The FXSAVE instruction is used when an operating system needs to perform a context switch or when an exception handler needs to save and examine the current state of the x87 FPU, MMX technology, and/or XMM and MXCSR registers.

The fields in Table 3-43 are defined in Table 3-44.

The FXSAVE instruction saves an abridged version of the x87 FPU tag word in the FTW field (unlike the FSAVE instruction, which saves the complete tag word). The tag information is saved in physical register order (R0 through R7), rather than in top-of-stack (TOS) order. With the FXSAVE instruction, however, only a single bit (1 for valid or 0 for empty) is saved for each tag. For example, assume that the tag word is currently set as follows:

R7 R6 R5 R4 R3 R2 R1 R0

11 xx xx xx 11 11 11 11

Here, 11B indicates empty stack elements and “xx” indicates valid (00B), zero (01B), or special (10B).

For this example, the FXSAVE instruction saves only the following 8 bits of information:

R7 R6 R5 R4 R3 R2 R1 R0

01110000

Here, a 1 is saved for any valid, zero, or special tag, and a 0 is saved for any empty tag.

The operation of the FXSAVE instruction differs from that of the FSAVE instruction, the as follows:

• FXSAVE instruction does not check for pending unmasked floating-point exceptions. (The FXSAVE operation in this regard is similar to the operation of the FNSAVE instruction).
• After the FXSAVE instruction has saved the state of the x87 FPU, MMX technology, XMM, and MXCSR registers, the processor retains the contents of the registers. Because of this behavior, the FXSAVE instruction cannot be used by an application program to pass a “clean” x87 FPU state to a procedure, since it retains the current state. To clean the x87 FPU state, an application must explicitly execute an FINIT instruction after an FXSAVE instruction to reinitialize the x87 FPU state.
• The format of the memory image saved with the FXSAVE instruction is the same regardless of the current addressing mode (32-bit or 16-bit) and operating mode (protected, real address, or system management). This behavior differs from the FSAVE instructions, where the memory image format is different depending on the addressing mode and operating mode. Because of the different image formats, the memory image saved with the FXSAVE instruction cannot be restored correctly with the FRSTOR instruction, and likewise the state saved with the FSAVE instruction cannot be restored correctly with the FXRSTOR instruction.

The FSAVE format for FTW can be recreated from the FTW valid bits and the stored 80-bit floating-point data (assuming the stored data was not the contents of MMX technology registers) using Table 3-45.

The J-bit is defined to be the 1-bit binary integer to the left of the decimal place in the significand. The M-bit is defined to be the most significant bit of the fractional portion of the significand (i.e., the bit immediately to the right of the decimal place).

When the M-bit is the most significant bit of the fractional portion of the significand, it must be 0 if the fraction is all 0’s.

IA-32e Mode Operation ¶

In compatibility sub-mode of IA-32e mode, legacy SSE registers, XMM0 through XMM7, are saved according to the legacy FXSAVE map. In 64-bit mode, all of the SSE registers, XMM0 through XMM15, are saved. Additionally, there are two different layouts of the FXSAVE map in 64-bit mode, corresponding to FXSAVE64 (which requires REX.W=1) and FXSAVE (REX.W=0). In the FXSAVE64 map (Table 3-46), the FPU IP and FPU DP pointers are 64-bit wide. In the FXSAVE map for 64-bit mode (Table 3-47), the FPU IP and FPU DP pointers are 32-bits.

Operation ¶

IF 64-Bit Mode
    THEN
        IF REX.W = 1
            THEN
                DEST := Save64BitPromotedFxsave(x87 FPU, MMX, XMM15-XMM0,
                MXCSR);
            ELSE
                DEST := Save64BitDefaultFxsave(x87 FPU, MMX, XMM15-XMM0, MXCSR);
        FI;
    ELSE
        DEST := SaveLegacyFxsave(x87 FPU, MMX, XMM7-XMM0, MXCSR);
FI;

Protected Mode Exceptions ¶

Real-Address Mode Exceptions ¶

Virtual-8086 Mode Exceptions ¶

Same exceptions as in real address mode.

Compatibility Mode Exceptions ¶

Same exceptions as in protected mode.

64-Bit Mode Exceptions ¶

Implementation Note ¶

The order in which the processor signals general-protection (#GP) and page-fault (#PF) exceptions when they both occur on an instruction boundary is given in Table 5-2 in the Intel^® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer’s Manual, Volume 3B. This order vary for FXSAVE for different processor implementations.