A good answer might be:

-2³¹ to +2³¹-1

(There are 2³² bit patterns. Half of them are for negative integers, and the remaining are for the positive integers and zero).

Example Program

Here is the previous addition problem extended to 32 bits.

carry  --> 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 1111 111
           0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1010 1011         000000AB
           0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0101 0101         00000055
           ---------------------------------------         --------
           0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000         00000100

What was unsigned overflow with 8-bit unsigned arithmetic is within range for 32-bit arithmetic.

## AddSome.asm
## 
## Program to demonstrate addition
        .text
        .globl  main

main:
        ori      $8, $0, 0xAB       # put 0x000000AB into $8
        ori      $9, $0, 0x55       # put 0x00000055 into $9
        addu     $10,$9, $8         # $10 <-- sum

## End of file

QUESTION 5:

Are registers $9 and $8 changed by the addu instruction in this program?