As of Arnold 4.2.16.2, the requirement is now “just” SSE4.1.
This blog post is for Google search to find; I’ve already blogged about the SSE4.1 requirement elsewhere.
If your processor does not support SSE4.1, the Arnold won’t run on your computer. MtoA will either fail to load, or you’ll get a crash whenever you try to render.
To check whether an older machine supports SSE4.1, here’s a few suggestions:
- Google your processor and “SSE”
cpu-world is pretty reliable, but I have seen one or two cases where the info was wrong, and SSE4.1 wasn’t really supported by a processor. - Windows: Download and run coreinfo -f
- OSX: Run sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features
- Linux: Check /proc/cpuinfo
A note about coreinfo:
- If you see an asterisk (*), then SSE4.1 is supported.
SSE4.1 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.1
- If you see a dash (-), then SSE4.1 is not supported.
SSE4.1 - Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.1