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Author Topic: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]  (Read 4138 times)

Matt

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Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« on: November 07, 2012, 12:02:21 pm »

We currently require a CPU with MMX support (MMX was introduced in 1996).

Would anyone object if we raised this requirement to SSE2?

Intel added SSE2 to the Pentium 4 in 2001.

AMD added SSE2 to the Opteron and Athlon 64 in 2003.

More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2

Does anyone use hardware older than this with Media Center 18?
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

mojave

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2012, 12:15:02 pm »

I don't have anything that old and don't know any other JRiver users locally with computers that old.
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glynor

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2012, 12:29:35 pm »

As long as most of the Atoms are included, I think you're fine.  And they do.
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Hendrik

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2012, 12:38:53 pm »

I have been thinking about the same requirement in LAV for a while now, who really runs a PC older then a P4 these days?
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bunglemebaby

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2012, 12:44:07 pm »

I finally retired my AMD Athlon 2100 system this year. So no objections from me.
To be honest MC was just a glorified file explorer on that machine anyway, so an old version would have sufficed if this change were made to MC18 and I was still using that system.
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kensn

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2012, 01:06:17 pm »

Nothing older than a P4 sounds pretty resonable to me.

Ken
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AndrewFG

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2012, 01:09:34 pm »

In my own application (Whitebear) I use SSE2 assembly code for byte order swapping. However I use a conditional to check for SSE2 support, and branch to the original Intel assembly code if not detected. It makes your compiled code a bit bigger, but the conditional switch hardly slows you down at all (you obviously don't call the switch inside of tight loops).

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AndrewFG

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2012, 01:12:53 pm »

By the way, I think that SSE2 support is a pre-requisitite for running Windows 8.
So you would be in good company...

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InflatableMouse

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2012, 01:58:27 pm »

I don't even know people that use P4's or older these days.
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Matt

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2012, 02:01:45 pm »

In my own application (Whitebear) I use SSE2 assembly code for byte order swapping. However I use a conditional to check for SSE2 support, and branch to the original Intel assembly code if not detected. It makes your compiled code a bit bigger, but the conditional switch hardly slows you down at all (you obviously don't call the switch inside of tight loops).

A slow fallback is normally the way to go.

But I'm trying to use SSE in a simple bitdepth converter.  A conditional for an FPU/CPU fallback makes it about 20% slower.

I can push the conditional up a level, but this breaks the encapsulation and would require writing two versions of lots of audio loops (gross).  Trying to use a pure virtual interface with different implementations for SSE and FPU destroys the ability to inline, hurting performance even more than a conditional.

So the fallback has a real cost in this case -- either in code complexity or performance.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

SpeedD408

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #10 on: November 07, 2012, 03:09:12 pm »

Not a short term solution, but how about grabbing the sys info at registration time.  That would tell you what hardware people have at it would be worst case since people typically don't down grade hardware.  This would help you to know what hardware people are running and how to best deal with these type issues.
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MrHaugen

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #11 on: November 07, 2012, 03:51:25 pm »

I do not know of any of my friends running computers older than this, and expecting to run apps like MC on it. So, I would think it's pretty safe.
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Hendrik

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #12 on: November 07, 2012, 04:04:11 pm »

By the way, I think that SSE2 support is a pre-requisitite for running Windows 8.
So you would be in good company...

And i thought i heard Windows 8 runs on any PC with PAE (any since Pentium Pro).. i should go find out.
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leezer3

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2012, 06:32:16 pm »

Now, a while back, someone brought up being able to use newer licences with older versions.
IMHO, if you make this change, then it'd be an advantage to provide an older build (version) able to be used on SSE2 machines.

I also seem to recall there's been at least a couple of bug reports in the relatively recent past from users running on slightly odd operating systems (Windows 2000 Pro springs to mind, although I'm not looking for the thread now), but I don't know what the hardware in use there would be likely to be?

To put it another way, the minute you make this sort of change, you'll probably acquire a vocal minority of users complaining about it. Whether the speed increases are worth the aggro, you'll have to decide :)

-Leezer-
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DarkPenguin

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2012, 07:43:38 pm »

I thought P4's were against the Kyoto treaty.

First you abandon windows 95 and now this.  Don't think that everyone supports your frenetic upgrade pace!

Yeah, it is fine by me.  The cost of a machine that would just barely run this is, what, $100?
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AndrewFG

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #15 on: November 08, 2012, 07:45:39 am »

And i thought i heard Windows 8 runs on any PC with PAE (any since Pentium Pro).. i should go find out.

See this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh975398.aspx -- Note that it only mentions SSE2 being a prerequisite; which seems to imply that plain SSE is not a prerequisite. Or does anyone read this differently?

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Hendrik

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Re: Requiring SSE2 CPU for Media Center 18 [feedback wanted]
« Reply #16 on: November 08, 2012, 08:02:13 am »

There is no CPU with SSE2 but not SSE.
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