Intel's Skylake CPUs for PCs won't support AVX-512 a.k.a. AVX3

[niofalpha]

I feel bad for the 3 people that would use this feature.

[patrickjp93]

They are using SSE3 if they are on Unreal 4+ or Unity 4+ and run on compatible hardware (basically everything made after 2004), but yeah, it would be beneficial to include an AVX compiled version of the engines for those wishing to use it.

On the subject of AVX512, my thoughts of upgrading have once again been moved. Skylake-EP it is. (or Zen if its competitive)

If AVX 512 software is ready when Zen arrives, and if Intel 10nm is delayed into 2017, it could bolster Zen sales in the short run at the very least.

And yes, UE and Unity are pushing the boundaries slightly at last, but honestly SIMD needs to get everywhere it can in the software industry, and it's scary that it hasn't all in the name of legacy support and the widest possible sales. I'm sure some are trying to optimize when limited to legacy instructions, and I can only imagine how painful that is.

[LukaP]

If AVX 512 software is ready when Zen arrives, and if Intel 10nm is delayed into 2017, it could bolster Zen sales in the short run at the very least.

And yes, UE and Unity are pushing the boundaries slightly at last, but honestly SIMD needs to get everywhere it can in the software industry, and it's scary that it hasn't all in the name of legacy support and the widest possible sales. I'm sure some are trying to optimize when limited to legacy instructions, and I can only imagine how painful that is.

well to be fair, most software doesnt even need to support SIMD because the compute capability of any processor from 2000 and newer is more than enough for it. Where it really counts is where we are seeing SIMD being implemented now. OS's, games, compute demanding programs like renderers and such  

 

So all in all (as this is still an enthusiast site where gaming is of most importance to a majority) vector instructions are coming into play now. just slower than we wouldve liked, but devs cant do much when just by utilising SSE4.2 you lose 25% of your market. I cant imagine what AVX or AVX2 would have you lose

[patrickjp93]

well to be fair, most software doesnt even need to support SIMD because the compute capability of any processor from 2000 and newer is more than enough for it. Where it really counts is where we are seeing SIMD being implemented now. OS's, games, compute demanding programs like renderers and such

 

So all in all (as this is still an enthusiast site where gaming is of most importance to a majority) vector instructions are coming into play now. just slower than we wouldve liked, but devs cant do much when just by utilising SSE4.2 you lose 25% of your market. I cant imagine what AVX or AVX2 would have you lose

The fact it isn't in Windows 7 still boggles my mind.

[LukaP]

The fact it isn't in Windows 7 still boggles my mind.

Windows 7's kernel was a stop-gap solution. it introduced some pretty awesome modern coding practice, but i guess that in 2007 SIMD wasnt that developed yet. I mean that was Penryn time, the Penryn that introduced SSE4. so i can understand why it wasnt compiled with SSE yet. And W8 came what? 2012? something like that. thats 5 years more for SIMD adoption