Do I really need SSE and SSE2?

[maxima88]

I just got my XP 1700+ cpu last week and was told I need to reinstall my OS to avail of that feature.
What exactly is it and do I need it to make my system run smoothly?
I really do not want to reformat my HD and reinstall my OS (win98SE).

 

[Silver]

Kind of mean sounding but "do you like performance"? Said in the nicest of ways.

 

[maxima88]

Thanks for the quick response. but what do you mean by performance? How much faster can my system run? I'm very happy w/ it now. Will it add stability?
I don't understand.

 

[-=UR=- Ranger]

Some programs which are specially designed to use sse will improve quite a bit, but on other programs which will be the majority, it won't have any effect at all....

 

[maxima88]

I really appreciate your quick responses.
Can you point me to a site that will explain more about SSE/SSE2 and the applications that will benefit from it?
If I upgrade from WIn98SE to Win ME, will whatever data I need to activate SSE/SSE2 be included in the upgrade?
thanks again.

 

[theflyingrat]

If you do anything that the machine will rebuild its HAL (hardware abstraction layer), the OS will find that the CPU is SSE/SSE2 capable and add that to its list of features that the OS can arbitrate between an application and the hardware. I'm not sure if an upgrade will do it (upgrades = the great satan), but I know a clean install will. If the the OS is never told that the instructions are there (like when you upgrade your CPU on an old OS install), the OS will ignore them entirely; applications that could otherwise use them will instead ignore them. For the most part, you'll get a little gain out of a few games (Serous Sam, Quake III, I believe, and a few others), but will see larger gains in some FLASK, DIVX, or MP3-encoding programs.

 

[Rezman5]

And just to clear things up, the XPs are only SSE, no SSE2 yet!

 

[Silver]

Some programs which are specially designed to use sse will improve quite a bit, but on other programs which will be the majority, it won't have any effect at all....

On the money. The next round of chips I hear will support sse2?

 

[Kendan]

On the money. The next round of chips I hear will support sse2?

I thought AMD will include SSE2 in the Hammer's not the thoroughbreds.

 

[maxima88]

so a clean install of Win98SE will solve my problem?

 

[Angry]

so a clean install of Win98SE will solve my problem?

WCPUID has a tweak to enable SSE in an alrdy installed OS,
I have heard that sometimes it works, other times it doesnt, and if it doesnt it means you will have to reinstall the OS...

Get WCPUID here:
http://cgi2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~nrklv/cgi-bin/softdl.cgi?wcpu30f.exe

V3.0f

 

[maxima88]

Angry, I was able to d/l it here's what it says:
And h[ WCPUID Version 3.0f (c) 1996-2002 By H.Oda! ]

Processor #1 : AMD Athlon XP (Model 6) / EC54BE95
Platform : Socket A (Socket 462)
Vendor String : AuthenticAMD
CPU Type : Original OEM Processor (0)
Family : 6 (7)
Model : 6 (6)
Stepping ID : 2 (2)
Brand : ----
APIC : ----
Name String : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1800+

Internal Clock : 1613.17 MHz
System Bus : 293.30 MHz DDR
System Clock : 146.65 MHz
Multiplier : 11.0

L1 I-Cache : 64K Byte
L1 D-Cache : 64K Byte
L1 T-Cache : ----
L1 Cache : ----
L2 Cache : 256K Byte
L2 Speed : 1613.17 MHz (Full)

MMX Unit : Supported
SSE Unit : Supported
SSE2 Unit : Not Supported
MMX2 Unit : Supported
3DNow! Unit : Supported
3DNow!+ Unit : Supported

Host Bridge : 1039:0735.01 [SiS 735]
South Bridge : 1039:0008.00 [SiS 5595]
VGA Device : 10DE:002D.15 [NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Pro]
Memory Size : 256M Byte
Memory Clock : ----

OS Version : Windows 98 Version 4.10.2222 A
-------------- : -----------------------------------
StdFunc 0 : 00000001 68747541 444D4163 69746E65
StdFunc 1 : 00000662 00000000 00000000 0383F9FF
ExtFunc 0 : 80000008 68747541 444D4163 69746E65
ExtFunc 1 : 00000762 00000000 00000000 C1CBF9FF
ExtFunc 2 : 20444D41 6C687441 74286E6F 5820296D
ExtFunc 3 : 38312050 002B3030 00000000 00000000
ExtFunc 4 : 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
ExtFunc 5 : 0408FF08 FF20FF10 40020140 40020140
ExtFunc 6 : 00000000 41004100 01008140 00000000
ExtFunc 7 : 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001
ExtFunc 8 : 00002022 00000000 00000000 00000000
C0010015h : 00000000 00001008 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C0010016h : 00000000 00000000 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C0010017h : 00000000 00000000 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C0010018h : 00000000 D0000018 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C0010019h : 0000000F F8000800 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C001001Ah : 00000000 10000000 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C001001Bh : 00000000 6003D22F D967E9D8 C2728E64
C0010111h : 00000000 000B0000 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C0010112h : 00000000 00000000 D967E9D8 C2728E64
C0010113h : 00000000 00000001 D967E9D8 C2728E64

##--- Date 03/07/2002, Time 20:42:54

How do I enable sse?
How do I copy/paste the actual WCPUID screen?

 

[Angry]

MAX, check you PM box.

 

[maxima88]

here's my wcpuid screenshot at 1613mhz

 

[maxima88]

How can I get the screenshot itself on my post instead of having to d/l it? I'll try attaching my mbm5 info.

 

[jazztrumpet216]

Bitmap files will always have to be downloaded... to avoid that, I just usually save them as .jpg files and upload from those. I think .png will also work, too.

 

[maxima88]

Thanks got the info. I'll stick to jpg from now on.