How can I find a list of all SSE instructions? What happens if a CPU doesn't support SSE?

Posted by Blastcore on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Blastcore
Published on 2012-11-06T00:55:38Z Indexed on 2013/10/31 3:59 UTC
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So I've been reading about how processors work. Now I'm on the instructions (SSE, SSE2, etc) stuff. (Which is pretty interesting).

I have lot of questions (I've been reading this stuff on Wikipedia):

  1. I've saw the names of some instructions that were added on SSE, however there's no explanation about any of them (Maybe SSE4? They're not even listed on Wikipedia). Where can I read about what they do?

  2. How do I know which of these instructions are being used?

  3. If we do know which are being used, let's say I'm doing a comparison, (This may be the most stupid question I've ever asked, I don't know about assembly, though) Is it possible to directly use the instruction on an assembly code? (I've been looking at this: http://asm.inightmare.org/opcodelst/index.php?op=CMP)

  4. How does the processor interpret the instructions?

  5. What would happen if I had a processor without any of the SSE instructions? (I suppose in the case we want to do a comparison, we wouldn't be able to, right?)

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