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Author Topic: Does MC support sse3?  (Read 2205 times)

soundcheck

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Does MC support sse3?
« on: September 21, 2006, 07:16:13 am »

Hi there.

Is MC supporting or is it planned to support sse3?

I was just wondering since the new dual core machines are supporting sse3 as far as I know.

I was also wondering if MC could benefit from supporting sse3 in the future, if it wouldn't support it today.

Does anybody have an opionon about that?
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LesC

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Re: Does MC support sse3?
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2006, 04:23:46 am »

does it even support sse2 ?
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glynor

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Re: Does MC support sse3?
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2006, 08:29:20 am »

Does it need to?  SSE performance improvements are typically targeted at applications that do a lot of "heavy" floating point math.  I'm not sure MC does enough serious FP to warrant the additional complexity of the multiple compilations required to support the different SSE versions.

It probably supports MMX and SSE1 but would the performance benefits really be worthwhile for it to support SSE2 (or especially 3 which is only supported on a small subset of newer Intel and AMD processors)?
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Matt

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Re: Does MC support sse3?
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2006, 08:34:10 am »

MC uses MMX heavily.

SSE is used less as there isn't as much parallel float math that needs to be done as there is parallel integer math.

The big plus for MC is getting a dual-core CPU.  MC is heavily threaded in every core area of the program.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

soundcheck

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Re: Does MC support sse3?
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2006, 11:09:05 am »

Hi there.


MC uses MMX heavily.

The big plus for MC is getting a dual-core CPU. MC is heavily threaded in every core area of the program.

Just got my new core duo notebook. That's probably why MC works so well.  ;D

Does it need to? SSE performance improvements are typically targeted at applications that do a lot of "heavy" floating point math.


It would most probably improve or better speed up tasks in the DSP area. Isn't MC DSP module working with float math.


Just for better understanding:
Don't you need just a compiler, which is supporting sse3? You don't need new commands or code!?!
The question is just if the compiled programme would be downward compatible on processors not suporting sse3, right?

which is only supported on a small subset of newer Intel and AMD processors)?

New Core Duo PCs are all supporting sse3, as far as I understood. There are not that many new processors not supporting sse3.

Anyhow.

Interesting to know, that MC wouldn't benefit much of sse3.

THX





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glynor

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Re: Does MC support sse3?
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2006, 11:33:08 am »

Intel introduced SSE3 with their Prescott line of Pentium 4 processors in early 2004.  All Intel processors released since then (with the possible exception of a handful of the Pentium-M chips) support it.  SSE3 support was added by AMD to their line of chips with the San Diego and Venice revisions introduced in mid-2005, and has supported it across the line ever since.

Still.... In the grand scheme of things, there are still plenty of people with Athlon XP, Pentium 3, and pre-prescott P4 processors out there (not to mention pre-Venice Athlon64s).  For most non-Netburst CPUs, performance gains from SSE3 are modest at best (those same types of results would also apply to Intel's new Core 2 designs).
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