Control Register (control register) for the IA-32 Platform)

A control register is a Processor register which changes or controls the general behavior of a CPU or other digital device. common Tasks stored med by control registers include interrupt control, switching the addressing mode, paging control, and coprocessor control.

A control register is a register used to modify or control CPU features. Its common functions include interrupt control, address mode conversion, page control, and parallel control. For example, if the 0th-bit (PE-bit) Position of the Cr0 register is set, the system runs in the protection model; otherwise, the system runs in the real mode.

Cr0

Bit	Name	Full name	Description
31	PG	Paging	If 1, enable paging and use the 32a register, else disable paging (whether to allow memory paging)
30	CD	Cache disable	Globally enables/disable the memory cache
29	NW	Not-write through	Globally enables/disable write-back caching
18	AM	Alignment mask	Alignment check enabled if am set, AC flag (in eflags register) set, and privilege level is 3
16	WP	Write protect	Determines whether the CPU can write to pages marked read-only (root can write user space)
5	Ne	Numeric Error	Enable internal x87 floating point error reporting when set, else enables PC style x87 Error Detection
4	Et	Extension Type	On the 386, it allowed to specify whether the external math coprocessor was an80287 or 80387
3	TS	Task switched	Allows saving x87 task context upon a Task Switch only after x87 instruction used
2	Em	Emulation	If set, no x87 floating point unit present, if clear, x87 FPU present
1	MP	Monitor co-Processor	Controls interaction of wait/fwait instructions with TS flag in Cr0
0	PE	Protected Mode enable	If 1, system is in protected mode, else system is in real mode (real mode or protection mode)

CR1

Retained

CR2

Used when Virtual addressing is enabled, hence when the PG bit is set in cr0.1.0 enables the processor to translate linear addresses into physical addresses by locating the page Directory and page tables for the current task. typically, the upper 20 bits of 330becomePage Directory base register(Pdbr), which stores the physical address of the first page directory entry.

303.

Used in Protected Mode to control operations such as virtual-8086 support, enabling I/O breakpoints, page size extension and machine check exceptions.

Bit	Name	Full name	Description
21	SMAP	Supervisor mode access protection enable	If set, access of data in a higher ring generates a fault
20	SMEP	Supervisor mode Execution Protection enable	If set, execution of code in a higher ring generates a fault
18	Osxsave	Xsave and processor extended states enable
17	Pcide	PCID enable	If set, enables process-context Identifiers (pcids ).
14	Smxe	Safer mode extensions enable	See trusted execution Technology (txt)
13	Vmxe	Virtual Machine extensions enable	See intel VT-x
10	Osxmmexcpt	Operating System Support for unmasked SIMD floating-point exceptions	If set, enables unmasked SSE exceptions.
9	Osfxsr	Operating System Support for fxsave and fxrstor instructions	If set, enables SSE instructions and fast FPU Save & restore
8	PCE	Performance-monitoring counter enable	If set, rdpmc can be executed at any privilege level, else rdpmc can only be used in Ring 0.
7	PGE	Page global Enabled	If set, address translations (PVDF or PTE records) may be shared between address spaces.
6	MCE	Machine check exception	If set, enables machine check interrupts to occur.
5	PAE	Physical address extension	If set, changes page table layout to translate 32-bit virtual addresses into extended 36-bit physical addresses.
4	PSE	Page size Extension	If unset, page size is 4 kib, else page size is increased to 4 MIB (or 2 MIB with PAE set ).
3	De	Debugging extensions	If set, enables debug register based breaks on I/O space access
2	TSD	Time stamp disable	If set, rdtsc instruction can only be executed when in Ring 0, otherwise rdtsc can be used at any privilege level.
1	PVI	Protected-mode virtual interrupts	If set, enables support for the virtual interrupt flag (vif) in protected mode.
0	VME	Virtual 8086 mode extensions	If set, enables support for the virtual interrupt flag (vif) in virtual-8086 mode.