Do many applications use SSE?

[zephyrprime]

Some people seem to take it as a foregone conclusion the all sorts of programs use SSE but is this really true? Does photoshop or 3dsmax use SSE? Do any games make use of SSE?

 

[WarmAndSCSI]

I'm pretty sure most modern games and multimedia apps use SSE and even SSE2... why would Intel even integrate this technology if it wasn't ever used?

 

[WarmAndSCSI]

damn doublepost bug

 

[PrincessGuard]

I believe DirectX has SSE/3Dnow support.

 

[Nothinman]

why would Intel even integrate this technology if it wasn't ever used?

They created it, they had no idea if anyone would use it when they started integrating it.

Anyway gcc compiles with sse and sse2 if the right target CPU is specified so I would have to assume MS' compiled would too. It really depends on what the people doing the compiling chose as their least common denominator, otherwise Adoboe would have to ship non-sse enabled versions of the apps incase you tried to run photoshop on a Pentium2, for instance.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Adobe had P4-specific updates for PhotoShop 6, as far as I know the only reason they'd be P4-specific is SSE2.

 

[sandorski]

Most use of 3DNow or SSE/2 usually takes place through DirectX or Hardware drivers. Most games don't bother using them directly, but benefit indirectly as noted in the previous sentence. Some apps like Photoshop, Lightwave, and others use them sometimes, but not always.

3DNow/SSE/SSE2 make for good marketing buzz and they eventually make some difference, but to a large extent are only really beneficial to a few who use specific applications.

Coming soon.....SSE3!