Quote Originally Posted by poke349 View Post
In Windows:
If the hardware supports AVX, but the OS doesn't, it will tell you outright before continuing. (similar message if you were to run a 32-bit OS on 64-bit hardware)
Similarly, if you were to run this version on Bulldozer, it will tell you that it can't use AVX yet.

In Linux:
I haven't made a dispatcher for it yet, so the user has to pick from one of the 4 binaries. I assume Linux users are more technically inclined. So if they run the AVX version and it crashes, it might be a good hint that the hardware doesn't support it. (Linux has had support for AVX for quite a while now, so I shouldn't have to worry about that.)

If the hardware doesn't support AVX in the first place, then it won't tell you anything about not being able to use AVX.


As for the compilers, GCC is fine. So the Linux version of the AVX binary will run on Bulldozer.
For Windows, I'll wait until closer to the release date of Bulldozer. There's no point in spending time on getting/learning/trying another compiler if the problem will go away by itself.
If neither the Intel Compiler nor Visual Studio has fixed their problem by Bulldozer's release, then I'll start looking for another compiler - MinGW is first on my list.



EDIT:
Here's what it looks like if you try running v0.5.5 on SB without OS support for AVX.

I actually have 3 OS's installed on this machine at the moment.
Windows 7: My default, has all my games and stuff installed.
Windows 7 SP1 Beta: Sole purpose -> AVX programming
Ubuntu 10.10: Linux programming.

The Windows 7 SP1 Beta install is just temporary. I put it on an extra laptop drive I had sitting around. I'm gonna get rid of it when MS officially releases SP1.

(click to enlarge)
In all my years, one of the things that I have learned is never assume people know stuff.

You'd be amazed at how stupid people can really be sometimes.

The last thing that you'd want to hear is somebody trying to run AVX without an AVX-supported OS or hardware. *rolls eyes*

I just suggested the other compilers that might be more "friendly" to you only because I had to look up what AVX is on wiki and it lists OS/compilers that support it.

Some Linux distros might still be using an older kernel (especially true when it comes to Enterprise linuxes), so, recompiling and updating the kernel may be required for AVX support.

I don't do anything that needs AVX, and as far as I know, none of the commerically available software that I use at work supports AVX, so I don't really have to worry about that for now.

If anything, I'd be moving over to GPU computing before I'd be moving to AVX computing.