The importance of intel's SSE in Windows 98 era software \ VOGONS

The importance of intel's SSE in Windows 98 era software

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First post, by evoportals

Posted on 2018-06-28, 17:25

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Hello everyone. I have my heart set on building a Windows 98 1ghz Athlon system specifically using the Thunderbird cpu. Back in 1999 I built a P3 450mhz system that happily carried me through Windows 98 era but was somewhat jealous of the 800mhz Athlon Thunderbird systems my friends build in late 2000. My question, was there any Windows 98 software that specifically required intel's SSE or greatly benefited from it? I used Windows 98 up until 2003 and don't recall or maybe it was just that I had a P3 already so I never ran into any issues.

Reply 1 of 13, by DosFreak

Posted on 2018-06-28, 18:08

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No SSE support in 9x but if the program requires SSE it should still run as long as the processor has SSE support.
NT4 I think requires a certain SP level or the SSE driver. Haven't verified that yet.

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Reply 2 of 13, by evoportals

Posted on 2018-06-28, 18:36

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Right but how important was SSE back in the Windows 98 days? Years 2000 - 2003 or so.

Reply 3 of 13, by derSammler

Posted on 2018-06-28, 18:55

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Windows 98 did support SSE. It was the first version of Windows to do so.

Reply 4 of 13, by BinaryDemon

Posted on 2018-06-28, 21:12

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I’m having trouble thinking of anything that absolutely requires SSE. MMX was a line in the sand for a lot of games, and I remember some games like Quake4 require SSE2. Not sure if SSE v1 just wasn’t that revolutionary or if developers just didn’t want to commit to SSE vs 3dnow.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 5 of 13, by leileilol

Posted on 2018-06-29, 02:34

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derSammler wrote:
Windows 98 did support SSE. It was the first version of Windows to do so.

Windows 98 predates SSE, it's 98SE that would come next after it.

BinaryDemon wrote:
I’m having trouble thinking of anything that absolutely requires SSE.

I've seen a few "Pentium III Optimized" games frmo 1999 on (Battlezone II at least, and maybe Wargasm and NFL Blitz 2000 ) but the first SSE-absolutely-required I recall running into was Quake 4 (not SSE2 - AthlonXPs could still run Q4).

long live PCem

Reply 6 of 13, by BinaryDemon

Posted on 2018-06-29, 10:49

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AthlonXP supports SSE2. Intel / AMD must have reached a deal by then.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 7 of 13, by leileilol

Posted on 2018-06-29, 11:10

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BinaryDemon wrote:
AthlonXP supports SSE2..

SSE2 didn't come for AMD until Opteron and Athlon64...

long live PCem

Reply 8 of 13, by BinaryDemon

Posted on 2018-06-29, 14:09

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Oops my bad, you are correct.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 9 of 13, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2018-06-29, 14:14

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The Athlon4 (mobile Corvette core) then Athlon XP and MP (desktop and server Palomino cores) introduced SSE to the AMD lineup.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 10 of 13, by Srandista

Posted on 2018-06-29, 16:42

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Yep, you'll receive this lovely message, when you try to install Firefox 49 and up on Athlon XP.

Last edited by Srandista on 2021-01-30, 22:21. Edited 1 time in total.

Socket 775 - ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA, Pentium E6500K, 4GB RAM, Radeon 9800XT, ESS Solo-1, Win 98/XP
Socket A - Chaintech CT-7AIA, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, ESS ES1869F, Win 98

Reply 11 of 13, by matze79

Posted on 2018-07-05, 15:16

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The Athlon 64 supported SSE2 and later SSE3 (San Diego)

Windows just sucks, i run Firefox without SSE on Athlon on Linux.

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Reply 12 of 13, by tpowell.ca

Posted on 2018-07-05, 16:07

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matze79 wrote:
Windows just sucks, i run Firefox without SSE on Athlon on Linux.

Don't blame Windows or Microsoft. Blame the people who compiled Firefox for Windows with Flags enabling SSE-specific optimizations.

Merlin: MS-4144, AMD5x86-160 32MB, 16GB CF, ZIP100, Orpheus, GUS, S3 VirgeGX 2MB
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Newton: K6XV3+/66, AMD K6-III+500, 256MB, 32GB SSD, AWE32, Voodoo3

Reply 13 of 13, by Srandista

Posted on 2018-07-05, 17:59

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You can still use latest "Firefox" on XP with SSE1 only CPUs.

http://matejhorvat.si/en/unfiled/pmxp/index.htm

Socket 775 - ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA, Pentium E6500K, 4GB RAM, Radeon 9800XT, ESS Solo-1, Win 98/XP
Socket A - Chaintech CT-7AIA, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, ESS ES1869F, Win 98

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