SSE and SSE2

[mito]

Do current games use SSE and SSE2?
Does the Quake engine utilize SSE?

Pentium 4 has SSE2 and Ahtlon Xp does not. Is this a disadvantage?

I'd like to read your opinions.



/\/\ito

 

[imgod2u]

Games don't really benefit from SIMD. The ratio of instructions to data in games is usually 1 on 1 so there are very little opportunities for SIMD. Although some games do try to utilize it, the result isn't so hot. So yes, some games do use SSE and SSE2, however, very few of them actually benefit all that much from the usage of it.
When SSE/SSE2 really becomes advantageous is in cases in which the instruction to data ratio is very low, i.e. 1:2 or 1:4. Such is the case with video or 3d rendering, audio work, etc. Such applications usually involve a relatively small set of algorithms being repeated over and over again on a huge amount of data. This is where SIMD can be very useful. SSE (present on the AthlonXP and P4) is very helpful towards such applications as DiVX encoding, etc. SSE2 (present only on the P4) allows operations on 64-bit double-precision FP data, which is used quite often in high end 3D CAD programs. The benefit Lightwave 7.5 and higher receives from its SSE2 optimizations should attest to that. In many rendering scenes, a 1.8a P4 can even surpass a 2.25 Athlon XP (with the 333 FSB) in rendering speed.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[juin]

It a disaventage to some extend as long that SSE support it give that ok but not the best.

Now what to do??

 

[ejsmith2]

This is one of the reasons why the P4 completely smokes the Athlon in Quake 3 games.

That engine uses very chunky textures. The P4 is unrivaled with Quake3 games.

"I personally think filesystems should be rewritten from scratch every 5 years..." --- Hans Reiser

 

[eden]

Not really, current benchmarks with the XP2800 suggest the AthlonXP is still clock for clock the better one at Q3. The P4 rightfully wins by high clockspeeds, that's it that's all.

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[imgod2u]

That and Quake3's textures require quite a bit of memory bandwidth.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

I know that serious sam and castle wolfenstein have 3dnow optimisations...

<b>Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk. <i>Terry Pratchett</i></b>