1. A method for performing conditional execution, the method comprising: providing a semantically overloaded flag operable to hold both semantic information and result information, the flag consisting only of one or two bits operable to hold both semantic information and result information; receiving an instruction, the instruction included in the instruction set supported by the processor on a programmable chip, the instruction including an operation code and a plurality of operands; determining if a type associated with the instruction is a comparison type, a saturation type instruction, or neither; performing the instruction to determine a result; setting the flag to represent one of following: compare result when the instruction type is a comparison type, saturation result when the instruction type is a saturation type instruction, and a sign of a result when the instruction type is neither; performing conditional execution using the semantically overloaded flag without using a four-bit NZCV flag.