title: MIPS sw and lw question
body: <p>I have seen in examples of sw and lw being used in MIPS the instruction looks like this.</p>
  
  <pre><code>lw $6, 0($4)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My first question is, what does the 0() do? What if it was lw $6, 4($4)? </p>
  
  <p>I am trying to test in the MARS mips program but whenever I execute the program the lw and sw seem to not update the registers with any values. for example if I have this code</p>
  
  <pre><code>ori $t1, $t1, 8
  lw $t2, 0($t1)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would expect $t2 to be updated to some value but this is not the case. My second question is if someone could anyone explain why $t2 still holds 0x00000000 and not a value after the lw instruction is executed. </p>