Re: Cpu does not have POPCNT! help

That's the CPU i'm using, along with a GTX 750ti. It doesn't work. Same error message: CPU does not have POPCNT!

All requirment is avaliable did Core2Quad START?

f4rk this game

Hey man i have the same CPU as you and as you said it supports SSE4.

Did you find a solution to play ?

@MonkeyAttacks 

Not yet and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any. They might surprise us, but I highly doubt it. Just check this thread after every update and if you don't see bunch of "Thank you" messages, then it's still dead. Keep playing Overwatch or Fortnite or whatever you play atm 😉

no

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@z1rk06n0v wrote:

"hey i have an intel core2extreme X9650 does that have support "

@trakgamer12  "On my 'old' QX9650 I can play Mordhau,Observation,Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Anno 1800,Outward, Baba is You, Heaven's Vault,Slay the Spire, Yakuza Kiwami 2, The Division 2, Rainbow Six Siege, CS:GO, Warframe, Destiny 2."

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You should overclock that sucker too! :eahigh_file:

But to answer your question, POPCNT will likely be a obstacle for you, preventing you from even launching Apex Legends.

"QX9650

• These models feature an unlocked clock multiplier.
• All models support: MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4.1 Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology (EIST), Intel 64 XD bit, iAMT2 (Intel Active Management), Intel VT-x
• Intel VT-d supported by: QX9650"

^ Similar to other higher end natural quads from that C2Q/Xeon generation, the game will not be compatible with your CPU due to its compiler flag settings being poorly assigned - using POPCNT for a trivial task. It would require a patch update.

A number of big, recent AAA games have added post-launch support for older processors, refactoring their SSE instruction set dependencies to permit compatibility with said processors.

Apex Legends is not among them.

Hah, I was looking up the date in which CPUs first supported POPCNT and actually came across this thread. You guys are pretty funny!

It is a possibility that perhaps POPCNT is used unnecessarily, that it could be replaced by other logic, and that may or may not be true. If it is true, though, you just wont to run into the real possibility the game takes advantage of another SSE 4.2 instruction, and as such fails. The existence of an error message (instead of an outright crash) for POPCNT leads me to believe that the developers are aware of the use of SSE 4.2 instructions, and as such have placed the message instead of just having the program crash when the CPU encounters it, instead of the use of POPCNT just being some random fluke.

For those of you wondering why the game won't run without this instruction: yes, this instruction could be emulated by other instructions not present within SSE at all, but programming the game to not take advantage of that instruction set is like maintaining a game for Windows XP. There are some people on Windows XP, but maintaining the game so that it runs on XP and modern software will hurt those who use Windows 10. To make it clear, with the exception of about 4 CPUs in the Core2 lineup (out of 100? Maybe more?), all consumer Intel CPUs which do not support are, at the very least, 10 years old. You can verify this on the wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors. Its successor, i3/i5/i7 CPUs, all support SSE4.2 from their first generation (late 2008 for i7 release, early 2010 for i3 release, iirc).

To use an example from a recent post, the QX9650. This is an extremely high-end CPU from 2007 and while CPU improvements have slowed down in recent years, newer CPUs still have new features which can be taken advantage of which old CPUs lack.

The hard truth is that no, EA is not colluding with Intel or AMD to make you buy a new CPU, at least not just by using POPCNT. And that yes, you will have to buy a new CPU. It's very likely that most CPUs, with maybe the exception of the $1000 super-high-end 2007 CPU, are going to run at a far from playable speed even if POPCNT was not used. Likely, with more modern games coming out this is likely going to happen more and more for those who don't support POPCNT. I found a used Intel i3-550 CPU for $14.25 on Newegg (which should technically run the game, but I wouldn't recommend it), and I found the minimum spec, the i3-6300 for $168 (though instead of purchasing that because it is the minimum, I would recommend getting and Intel Core i5-9400F, or other similar newer CPU. The 9400F is actually cheaper at $160 currently). The reason Fortnite and some other games even run as well as they do on such old CPUs is probably to be attributed to the games' cartoonish stylistic theme, while Apex Legends has a much more demanding and realistic graphical style.

This thread is good reading material though.

@BazookaHarwell

Here is a list of recent games that easily run at 1080p 60+ fps: 

Blackout, Firestorm, Sekiro, PUBG, Devil May Cry 5, The Division 2, World War Z, Anthem, Resident Evil 2 remake

And the list goes on and on.

But seeing that you're such a big fan of reading and read through this all (which you haven't, otherwise you would know that there were dev answers how to easily modify the exe file of the game with clear instructions for respawn devs), here is another thread with the same issue.

250 pages to read and the numbers keep rising. Have fun, random kid who had nothing to add to this conversation except trolling 🙂)

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/AMD-Phenom-Crash-to-Desktop-after-choosing-training-or/td-p/7419153

@BazookaHarwell 

"The reason Fortnite and some other games even run as well as they do on such old CPUs is probably to be attributed to the games' cartoonish stylistic theme, while Apex Legends has a much more demanding and realistic graphical style."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is not applicable here - we're talking compatibility, not performance, and please see the other games listed in recent posts.

It includes 2019 games we're running fine that are graphically and computationally on par or more demanding than Apex Legends.

However, due to the misaligned compiler flag settings causing a trivial dependency on POPCNT, we can't even launch Apex.

It's an instruction the CPU doesn't have that counts the number of  buts set to 1

https://www.felixcloutier.com/x86/popcnt

Should have been trivial for them to say if no POPCNT CPU support then use function _POPCNT instead and written the function.

Hello,

I built my computer sometime back in 2008 and am using:

• EVGA (132-CK-NF79) 790i Ultra Sli (MoBo)

• Intel Qx9770 @ 4.6GHz (CPU)

• 16GB G.Skill (F3-14900CL8D-8GBXMD [4×4]) @ 2000MHz CL:8 (RAM)

• EVGA 8GB GTX 1080 Classified (GPU)

-

I run (practically) everything on "Extreme" and don't have any issues/complaints--and have only EVER needed to "UpGrade" my Video-Card(s) for performance related concern.

This is my only known game that has issue.

Was there ever any sort of Community-Patch to Resolve this problem? It doesn't appear "POPCNT!" will ever be fixed by the Dev's for us LGA775 series` users...

...

Shame*

Hello

WoW this topic is still going same for amd phenom ones i assume and they still ignored their fans and players 

Amazing ... how bad a company can be 🙂

*Amazing* Never thought I'd see the day. However, 

Hopefully they'll have this fixed for the soon to be Millions of newcomers (Steam).

Steam has the same system requirements, so...

I contacted support via chat and opened a case re: POPCNT error for unsupported CPU (Intel Quad Core 9650, 3.0 ghz).  BTW I did include a link to this still relevant thread in chat, in hopes of possibly having a conversation with a member of development to inquire whether or not there will ever be some type of patch made available to those individuals affected by this barrier to entry (Apex Legends).

While I was optimistic initially--a case/ticket was opened and I was assured that I would be contacted by a rep from development--the case/ticket was closed with no additional info provided approximately  two weeks later.  I'm going to re-open this case and I would encourage all who have this same barrier to entry (Unsupported CPU/POPCNT) to do the same.

While I understand that EA has the freedom to set their minimum system requirements as they see fit (including CPU specs), it seems somewhat strange, and a little unfair, that they would specifically block an entire segment of users (by not adding some very basic "if no POPCNT, then..." related strings) that have CHOSEN to use computer hardware that--while dated--might be more than capable of running their game with some very decent results (and in certain instances even better than very decent results).  And I don't believe that they should be in the business of deciding for their customers which computer hardware they should buy and use, and which ones they should not.  It's also strange that they would ignore their own customers (as well as potential customers) who are affected by this issue that is clearly still relevant today.

I would encourage everyone who is affected by this "barrier to entry" related issue to open a ticket/case with EA and let them know.

They're not deciding what hardware their customers use. You are choosing what hardware you use. If you're hardware is incompatible, that's not their fault. That's just how things work. 

Things move forward. You can't expect companies to wait for people who refuse to update their devices. That's like someone whining that new mobile games won't work on their Galaxy S2.

Clearly, you do not have the minimum requirements of the game. That's the minimum requirement. Minimum being the key word, and that minimum isn't even that high. 

If you want to play a game, you have to get the equipment required to play it. If you don't, that's too bad for you, and your choice.

Clearly, you don't seem to understand the issue at hand.

This is like complaining an S2 cannot run the latest games, while a smartwatch on the other hand has free rein.

Because again, for the nth time, this isn't about lack of horsepower.

It's about a single compiler switch (or at worst some lines of code) that nobody really put much thought into.

If I disable EAC and hack a bit my way on the game, I can as well play the tutorial for some minutes with a Core 2 Quad. At full 60fps.

Come on.

It's still something your CPU doesn't have, that's required. 

And you can't hack that ability into your CPU. You know what you could do, though? Get a functioning processor, that's capable of running the game.

Putting aside that yes, you can hack that in (as I just said), you seem oblivious to what kind of instructions we are talking about.

The thing that we are asking to be patched out of the game to run, is not making the game start. Thanks sherlock?

The question here is to do that. Or at least, if they don't/can't, to please justify it (because other than sheer carelessness, it makes no sense as a mandatory thing)

No you can't. You can go around it. That's not the same thing.  Clearly, you're the one who doesn't know what's being talked about. You're just parroting what someone else said, without understanding what was meant. 

Yeah. It is not making the game start. Starts perfectly fine on my new laptop, and even my 6 year old one. 

Game runs great.

Then again, neither are more than a decade old. Maybe I should try running the game on a Packard Bell, or a Gateway 2000.

Thanks for your input.  So just to clarify, your recommendation is to purchase a more modern machine that meets the system requirements needed in order for me to be able to run Apex Legends?  By the way, it's not for me (Apex Legends), it's for my 8 year old son who plays Fortnite on this 'ancient' machine for hours on end with barely a hiccup (on medium settings at around 120 to 140 fps).  Well thanks again for your suggestion.  

 If I take your suggestion and go out and purchase a more modern machine you are correct in that I will not have this issue, since a more modern machine's processor will have POPCNT instructions, which mine does not.  Will a more modern processor provide better, smoother gameplay assuming all other things are relatively equal (GPU, RAM etc...by the way my ancient machine has a solid state drive, an Nvidia 1030GT GPU, and 16 gb of RAM, which probably explains my son's ability to play Fortnite for what sometimes seems like an eternity)? 

Probably...but not because the processor possesses the required POPCNT instructions.

If EA would like a new customer--and it seems that they would gain MANY new customers based on this still relevant thread--I think a patch would be the way to go.  Perhaps they do not want new customers.  That is fine also, but it seems a strange business model to have, particularly within the gaming industry where it is well known that there are many hard core gamers that choose to use older equipment and "totally hook it up".  I believe that the POPCNT instruction requirement was probably an oversight more than anything else; I mean after all, wouldn't EA prefer that my son choose to play Apex Legends over Fortnite?  Maybe not.

Hmm.   

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@Psyrecx wrote:

No you can't. You can go around it. That's not the same thing.  Clearly, you're the one who doesn't know what's being talked about. You're just parroting what someone else said, without understanding what was meant. 

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Are you trolling? I'm telling you I literally physically tried the game after I disabled EAC (thanks to the famous popcnt_emulator) and that it worked just fine.
And it makes all the sense of the world, if you understand just how trivially stupid "counting the 1s in a string" is.

But please, by all means, continue with these bad faith metaphors.