What is popcnt? sse

Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:24 am by · Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:24 am by

I have "stockfish 6 64 popcnt" on my pc. Is it better or faster than normal "stockfish 6 64"

I also have seen terms like "sse" in engine names? I searched but couldn't find their meanings. Can anyone clarify it for me? :)

Sun Jul 05, 2015 2:15 am by · Sun Jul 05, 2015 2:15 am by

@nitewalker wrote:I have "stockfish 6 64 popcnt" on my pc. Is it better or faster than normal "stockfish 6 64"

I also have seen terms like "sse" in engine names? I searched but couldn't find their meanings. Can anyone clarify it for me? :)

SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). SSE4.2, a second subset consisting of the 7 remaining instructions, is first available in Nehalem-based Core i7.
- Intel Core processors introduced a POPCNT instruction with the SSE4.2 instruction set extension, first available in a Nehalem-based Core i7 processor, released in November 2008. So, if your processor was released in 2008 and after, use a compile that supports popcnt with sse4.2 support.