PC Gaming & Dual Core Processors?

[Rl'Halsinor]

I will be upgrading from my Athlon 64 3200+ to an X2 3800+ Manchester. My question is how do older games such as Morrowind, Comand & Conquer, etc., do with the newer dual core processors?

For those who utilize dual core and play these older games is there anything to be aware of? Any known issues? Thanks.

 

[TwistedBishop]

The only old-ish game I've tried on my Core 2 Duo so far is Magic Online. It won't run under two cpus, so you have to manually set affinity through the Task Manager. That should be the universal, if inelegant, answer to any older game problems.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Programs not coded for dual cores do not directly take advantage of them. That does not mean that the other processes you tend to run at the same time as your game will not take direct advantage of your dual core, however, because they do.

In that sense, even an older non-daul core game will indirectly benefit from the dual core setup, because your other applications are reaping those benefits.

In my opinion, the point is moot and largely academic. The question which is relevant is: should I get a dual core processor and will I see benefits of that when running my applications and playing games?

The answer is yes and yes; though the direct benefits for some are greater than the indirect benefits when running others. Moreover, most people purchase new equipment not simply to enjoy good performance today - but to enjoy it tomorrow as well. And it is fair to say that dual core keeps getting better while single core keeps getting relatively worse in terms of performance.

Could you get better performance for a game on a very fast single core processor than a slower dual core? Yes, in some instances this can be true. But it is increasingly less true - and is quickly becomes false when you are running other applications at the same time. Sometimes that's a voice communication package, or a bittorent client or even something like WinAmp or iTunes... it doesn't take much to observe a benefit.

 

[Redrobes]

I will be upgrading from my Athlon 64 3200+ to an X2 3800+ Manchester. My question is how do older games such as Morrowind, Comand & Conquer, etc., do with the newer dual core processors?

For those who utilize dual core and play these older games is there anything to be aware of? Any known issues? Thanks.

No issues as far as I know - its just that older games are not likely to make much use of a second core. It will only get use if either a) you run more than one program at once - not likely for games or b) the game uses multiple threads which might be actively designed in modern programs to try and use it with multiple cores but is more likely in older games that it might only use the second core for a small amount by accident.

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

Thanks to everyone who has replied. It really helped. Steel_Wind, my main reason for a dual core with my socket 939 is to keep it relevant as possible. It is a good solid system but I realize that for this to be a longer term use machine, especially if [when] I upgrade to Vista, I believe the Dual Core will be more serviciable as opposed to my single core; and I am certainly not limiting this to gaming.

By the way, I know about the MS patch and AMD patch. When I boot up after installing the Dual Core and Windows recognizes it and installs it, do I then apply both patches? Do I then reboot for a second time? MS first and then AMD?

Thanks again to everyone.

 

[TwistedBishop]

If you mean the MS Hotfix and the AMD Optimizer, I'm not sure you need to bother with them at all. It's not a widespread cause of concern from my reading, and in some cases can even hamper performance. AFAIK, prebuilt computers neglect it entirely.

I'd like to hear what other people suggest though. I recently built a new dual core machine myself, so it's definitely a subject I'm interested in.

 

[drothgery]

Could you get better performance for a game on a very fast single core processor than a slower dual core? Yes, in some instances this can be true.

Except that while this might be true in theory, in practice the days of single-core CPUs that were clocked higher than their dual core siblings seems to have ended with the launch of the Core 2 Duo last summer. And it looks like Intel's moving it's 'Extreme' line to all quad-core later this year, with AMD likely to do the same with their FX line. So any midrange or better CPU is a duallie or a really bad value (read: a Pentium 4) at this point.

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

If you mean the MS Hotfix and the AMD Optimizer, I'm not sure you need to bother with them at all. It's not a widespread cause of concern from my reading, and in some cases can even hamper performance. AFAIK, prebuilt computers neglect it entirely.

I'd like to hear what other people suggest though. I recently built a new dual core machine myself, so it's definitely a subject I'm interested in.

From what has been told to me it is an XP issue, i.e., the need to patch.. But is this correct?

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

Except that while this might be true in theory, in practice the days of single-core CPUs that were clocked higher than their dual core siblings seems to have ended with the launch of the Core 2 Duo last summer. And it looks like Intel's moving it's 'Extreme' line to all quad-core later this year, with AMD likely to do the same with their FX line. So any midrange or better CPU is a duallie or a really bad value (read: a Pentium 4) at this point.

So are you saying then that a Dual Core CPU is not as good a buy as led to believe?

 

[TwistedBishop]

From what has been told to me it is an XP issue, i.e., the need to patch.. But is this correct?

I'm running XP and haven't installed the patch (hotfix + regedit). No problems here.

There's a chance that doing the patch and edits might increase performance. Or decrease it. Honestly, if it was a pertinent issue currently, I think we'd see more attention given to it.

For playing older games that are having problems, I would stick with disabling a core via Task Manager.