You sure - I know x86 you had to enable it and then it tied it to certain processors so it would fault on early x86 ones but I was fairly sure the x64 instruction set includes by default the SSE1 and 2 so there is no option on an MS compiler to enable them. I think the SSE3 is optional. I was under the impression that if you compile for x64 then you get the compiler speed up from the use of SSE 1 & 2 instructions with no options. Thats why I have not been all that interested in doing any SSE optimizations.

It was a shame that they binned the Larrabee cos that was supposed to be x86 in an array programmed under OpenCL which would have been perfect. So at mo were stuck with CUDA and AMDs OpenCL. I think I saw that nVidia has released OpenCL drivers without having to sign up to their dev program now. I agree that its a bit of a chore tho and too much hassle unless your real dedicated to making it work or its your day job / funded job to do it.