> The windows source code of POV-3.5 came with a file called intelsse2.h which
> provided SSE2 optimized noise computation for fasternoise.h. I noticed that
> version 3.6 source code no longer provides these files. I wonder why...

	AFAIK at the time 3.5 was released the available compilers were not
able to automatically generate SSE2-optimized code for that particular peace
of code, and Intel contributed the hand-optimized code you are referring to.
Nowadays the situation is much different since, in particular, the Intel C++
compiler greatly improved its optimization framework (the GCC compiler did
also improve a lot, though it is still not as good as ICPC at optimizing on
the P4 architecture; K8 might be slightly different though).  Therefore,
the 3.6 codebase didn't need this hand-optimization any longer.

> Does this mean that the official windows binaries are not built using sse2
> optimized noise files?

	I'm not sure for the latest 3.6.1c Windows binary -- but if it is
indeed optimized for SSE2-capable CPUs, not only the noise code will benefit
from the optimizations.  At least the 3.7 beta offer a fully optimized SSE2
build as well as an non-SSE2 optimized binary.

	Chris Cason might give you a more precise answer about the matter.

	- NC

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