or unsigned characters eight 16 bit signed or unsigned shorts four 32 bit integers or four 32 bit floating point variables vmx provides cache control instructions intended to minimize cache pollution when working on streams of data simd instruction sets can batch process a plurality of data sets that are consecutive in memory in one embodiment data is merged using a vmx instruction set the following instructions sets in vmx are utilized with the merge operations vector minimum vector maximum vector compare equal and vector permutation the vector minimum instruction compares each value of the elements in a first input register to the corresponding value in a second input register and places the smaller of the two values into a corresponding element of the output register similarly the vector maximum instruction compares each value of the elements in a first input register to the corresponding value in a second input register and places the larger of the two values into a corresponding element of the output register the vector compare equal instruction compares each value in a first input register to a corresponding value in a second input register and sets each of the bits of the corresponding element of the output register to 1 if the elements of the two input registers are the same conversely if the elements of the two input.