How to check if a CPU supports the SSE3 instruction set?

C++ Problem Overview

Is the following code valid to check if a CPU supports the SSE3 instruction set?

Using the IsProcessorFeaturePresent() function apparently does not work on Windows XP.

bool CheckSSE3()
{
    int CPUInfo[4] = {-1};

    //-- Get number of valid info ids
    __cpuid(CPUInfo, 0);
    int nIds = CPUInfo[0];

    //-- Get info for id "1"
    if (nIds >= 1)
    {
        __cpuid(CPUInfo, 1);
        bool bSSE3NewInstructions = (CPUInfo[2] & 0x1) || false;
        return bSSE3NewInstructions;     
    }

    return false;      
}

C++ Solutions

Solution 1 - C++

I've created a GitHub repro that will detect CPU and OS support for all the major x86 ISA extensions: https://github.com/Mysticial/FeatureDetector

Here's a shorter version:

First you need to access the CPUID instruction:

#ifdef _WIN32

//  Windows
#define cpuid(info, x)    __cpuidex(info, x, 0)

#else

//  GCC Intrinsics
#include <cpuid.h>
void cpuid(int info[4], int InfoType){
    __cpuid_count(InfoType, 0, info[0], info[1], info[2], info[3]);
}

#endif

Then you can run the following code:

//  Misc.
bool HW_MMX;
bool HW_x64;
bool HW_ABM;      // Advanced Bit Manipulation
bool HW_RDRAND;
bool HW_BMI1;
bool HW_BMI2;
bool HW_ADX;
bool HW_PREFETCHWT1;

//  SIMD: 128-bit
bool HW_SSE;
bool HW_SSE2;
bool HW_SSE3;
bool HW_SSSE3;
bool HW_SSE41;
bool HW_SSE42;
bool HW_SSE4a;
bool HW_AES;
bool HW_SHA;

//  SIMD: 256-bit
bool HW_AVX;
bool HW_XOP;
bool HW_FMA3;
bool HW_FMA4;
bool HW_AVX2;

//  SIMD: 512-bit
bool HW_AVX512F;    //  AVX512 Foundation
bool HW_AVX512CD;   //  AVX512 Conflict Detection
bool HW_AVX512PF;   //  AVX512 Prefetch
bool HW_AVX512ER;   //  AVX512 Exponential + Reciprocal
bool HW_AVX512VL;   //  AVX512 Vector Length Extensions
bool HW_AVX512BW;   //  AVX512 Byte + Word
bool HW_AVX512DQ;   //  AVX512 Doubleword + Quadword
bool HW_AVX512IFMA; //  AVX512 Integer 52-bit Fused Multiply-Add
bool HW_AVX512VBMI; //  AVX512 Vector Byte Manipulation Instructions

int info[4];
cpuid(info, 0);
int nIds = info[0];

cpuid(info, 0x80000000);
unsigned nExIds = info[0];

//  Detect Features
if (nIds >= 0x00000001){
    cpuid(info,0x00000001);
    HW_MMX    = (info[3] & ((int)1 << 23)) != 0;
    HW_SSE    = (info[3] & ((int)1 << 25)) != 0;
    HW_SSE2   = (info[3] & ((int)1 << 26)) != 0;
    HW_SSE3   = (info[2] & ((int)1 <<  0)) != 0;

    HW_SSSE3  = (info[2] & ((int)1 <<  9)) != 0;
    HW_SSE41  = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 19)) != 0;
    HW_SSE42  = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 20)) != 0;
    HW_AES    = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 25)) != 0;

    HW_AVX    = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 28)) != 0;
    HW_FMA3   = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 12)) != 0;

    HW_RDRAND = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 30)) != 0;
}
if (nIds >= 0x00000007){
    cpuid(info,0x00000007);
    HW_AVX2   = (info[1] & ((int)1 <<  5)) != 0;

    HW_BMI1        = (info[1] & ((int)1 <<  3)) != 0;
    HW_BMI2        = (info[1] & ((int)1 <<  8)) != 0;
    HW_ADX         = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 19)) != 0;
    HW_SHA         = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 29)) != 0;
    HW_PREFETCHWT1 = (info[2] & ((int)1 <<  0)) != 0;

    HW_AVX512F     = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 16)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512CD    = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 28)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512PF    = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 26)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512ER    = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 27)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512VL    = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 31)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512BW    = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 30)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512DQ    = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 17)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512IFMA  = (info[1] & ((int)1 << 21)) != 0;
    HW_AVX512VBMI  = (info[2] & ((int)1 <<  1)) != 0;
}
if (nExIds >= 0x80000001){
    cpuid(info,0x80000001);
    HW_x64   = (info[3] & ((int)1 << 29)) != 0;
    HW_ABM   = (info[2] & ((int)1 <<  5)) != 0;
    HW_SSE4a = (info[2] & ((int)1 <<  6)) != 0;
    HW_FMA4  = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 16)) != 0;
    HW_XOP   = (info[2] & ((int)1 << 11)) != 0;
}

Note that this only detects whether the CPU supports the instructions. To actually run them, you also need to have operating system support.

Specifically, operating system support is required for:

x64 instructions. (You need a 64-bit OS.)
Instructions that use the (AVX) 256-bit ymm registers. See Andy Lutomirski's answer for how to detect this.
Instructions that use the (AVX512) 512-bit zmm and mask registers. Detecting OS support for AVX512 is the same as with AVX, but using the flag 0xe6 instead of 0x6.

Solution 2 - C++

Mysticial's answer is a bit dangerous -- it explains how to detect CPU support but not OS support. You need to use _xgetbv to check whether the OS has enabled the required CPU extended state. See here for another source. Even gcc has made the same mistake. The meat of the code is:

bool avxSupported = false;

int cpuInfo[4];
__cpuid(cpuInfo, 1);

bool osUsesXSAVE_XRSTORE = cpuInfo[2] & (1 << 27) || false;
bool cpuAVXSuport = cpuInfo[2] & (1 << 28) || false;

if (osUsesXSAVE_XRSTORE && cpuAVXSuport)
{
    unsigned long long xcrFeatureMask = _xgetbv(_XCR_XFEATURE_ENABLED_MASK);
    avxSupported = (xcrFeatureMask & 0x6) == 0x6;
}

Solution 3 - C++

After quite a bit of googling, I also found the solutions from Intel:

Link: https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/how-to-detect-new-instruction-support-in-the-4th-generation-intel-core-processor-family

	void cpuid(uint32_t eax, uint32_t ecx, uint32_t* abcd) {
#if defined(_MSC_VER)
			__cpuidex((int*)abcd, eax, ecx);
#else
			uint32_t ebx, edx;
# if defined( __i386__ ) && defined ( __PIC__ )
			/* in case of PIC under 32-bit EBX cannot be clobbered */
			__asm__("movl %%ebx, %%edi \n\t cpuid \n\t xchgl %%ebx, %%edi" : "=D" (ebx),
# else
			__asm__("cpuid" : "+b" (ebx),
# endif
			"+a" (eax), "+c" (ecx), "=d" (edx));
			abcd[0] = eax; abcd[1] = ebx; abcd[2] = ecx; abcd[3] = edx;
#endif
	}

	int check_xcr0_ymm()
	{
		uint32_t xcr0;
#if defined(_MSC_VER)
		xcr0 = (uint32_t)_xgetbv(0);  /* min VS2010 SP1 compiler is required */
#else
		__asm__("xgetbv" : "=a" (xcr0) : "c" (0) : "%edx");
#endif
		return ((xcr0 & 6) == 6); /* checking if xmm and ymm state are enabled in XCR0 */
	}

Also note that GCC has some special intrinsics that you can use (see: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.9.2/gcc/X86-Built-in-Functions.html ):

	if (__builtin_cpu_supports("avx2"))
    // ...

If you put this together with the information above, it'll all work out fine.

Solution 4 - C++

To add to Abhiroop's answer: On linux, you can run this shell command to find out the features supported by your CPU

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep flags | uniq

On my machine this prints

> flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch invpcid_single retpoline kaiser fsgsbase bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm rdseed adx xsaveopt

Solution 5 - C++

On a Mac OS this works:

sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features

In my machine it outputs this:

> machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX EST TM2 SSSE3 FMA CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC MOVBE POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE SEGLIM64 TSCTMR AVX1.0 RDRAND F16C

As you can see with the instructions written in bold, SSE3 and bunch of other SIMD instructions are supported.

Solution 6 - C++

Alternativley on linux or wsl2 the lscpucommand from the util-linux repository will do the job.

E.g:

lscpu | grep sse3

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Stiefel	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - C++	Mysticial	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - C++	Andy Lutomirski	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - C++	atlaste	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - C++	rahul003	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - C++	Abhiroop Sarkar	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - C++	abu_bua	View Answer on Stackoverflow