Dual/multi core games.

ShiWarrior said:
i am very suprised to see games like "alice" in that list, i have that game, as u say 2000 game, so 7 years old and supports dual core? that must be with a new patch? (and no u dont need a powerful processor anyway, im just curious)
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Various googlings say all quake III engined games support dualcore, i dont know how it is either, i know it started with support for hyper-threading, but some of these days came out before that, for those I'm not sure how it is, but on various forums people say they do.
 
Even looking at these Quad core benchmarks here :

Quake 4:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_quad_q6600_preview/page7.asp

HL2 lost coast:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_quad_q6600_preview/page8.asp

Company of heros:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_quad_q6600_preview/page9.asp

The only one thats showed a good worthy benchark was Vavles mutlicore test

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_quad_q6600_preview/page5.asp

Definatly need some Supreme Commander benchies!
 
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snowdog said:
Various googlings say all quake III engined games support dualcore, i dont know how it is either, i know it started with support for hyper-threading, but some of these days came out before that, for those I'm not sure how it is, but on various forums people say they do.
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Maybe there is support for multi-processor systems which bodes well with todays multi-core idea :)
 
added 3 links in the list after q3 on wich somewhere on those pages theres a text about quake 3/q3 engine dual core support, if anyone is bothered to read. Also on the forums of a site ocuk doesnt like (starts with an H) theres a post about q3...


Damn its hard to find info about dualcore support, google really gives a lot of crap and unrelevant results...
Ill try Chacha.com :D.

Edit : meh search with a guide on chacha gives:
Status: 500 Internal Server Error Content-Type: text/html
500 Application error
Ahwell ill try tomorrow...
 
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Whats going on with Fear? why is the us patch 600mb and the uk only 200?

and I take it I cant use the 108 patch unless I have 107 installed first? my fer is v102. :rolleyes:
 
I think there is a danger people are getting the wrong idea when people read multi core support. That does *not* mean the game will run much faster, it means the game is aware of the second core and might use it. Have a look at those benchmarks, the vast majority of games gain a mere few percent increase, thats probably more thanks to the game having the whole CPU rather than sharing it.

To my knowledge the only game to use a dual/quad cores is Supreme Commander. Everything else probably just uses it for MP3 decoding etc and gives a minimal speed up.

There are still VERY few games to use multiple cores.

EDIT: I just don't believe half the games on that list, could you put links next to each as evidence.
 
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Caustic said:
I think there is a danger people are getting the wrong idea when people read multi core support. That does *not* mean the game will run much faster, it means the game is aware of the second core and might use it. Have a look at those benchmarks, the vast majority of games gain a mere few percent increase, thats probably more thanks to the game having the whole CPU rather than sharing it.

To my knowledge the only game to use a dual/quad cores is Supreme Commander. Everything else probably just uses it for MP3 decoding etc and gives a minimal speed up.

There are still VERY few games to use multiple cores.

EDIT: I just don't believe half the games on that list, could you put links next to each as evidence.
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For wich games, half those games are based on the quake 3 engine, thus only posted links after quake 3...

If you see any game you are sure that doesn't support it post a link with evidance that it doesn't.
 
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How come there are games from 2000 on the list?
I am sure that they weren't designing games to use multi core CPUs in the year 2000.....
 
snowdog said:
For wich games, half those games are based on the quake 3 engine, thus only posted links after quake 3...
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But there is another problem. Q3 isn't really dual core enabled. Carmack apparently wrote it as a test, and it was never officially supported as the performance gain could vary greatly and even hinder frame rates. It was done as a test, and Carmack concluded that it wasn't worth pursuing until the next big engine. I think some of the games based on the Q3 engine removed the option. I don't think Q3, or any games based on it should be on the list.

Surely the point here is to see which games really benefit from a dual core CPU and result in a noticable frame rate increase.

Doing a bit more research, Quake 4 got a SMP patch, and a large speedup was the result. See here: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/default.asp
 
Cartho said:
How come there are games from 2000 on the list?
I am sure that they weren't designing games to use multi core CPUs in the year 2000.....
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See the post after your's and my post before your post, those are games based on the quake 3 engine.

Caustic said:
But there is another problem. Q3 isn't really dual core enabled. Carmack apparently wrote it as a test, and it was never officially supported as the performance gain could vary greatly and even hinder frame rates. It was done as a test, and Carmack concluded that it wasn't worth pursuing until the next big engine. I think some of the games based on the Q3 engine removed the option. I don't think Q3, or any games based on it should be on the list.

Surely the point here is to see which games really benefit from a dual core CPU and result in a noticable frame rate increase.

Doing a bit more research, Quake 4 got a SMP patch, and a large speedup was the result. See here: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/default.asp
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So all those sites about the quake 3 engine supporting dualcore are wrong :confused: ?
Ahwell ill update the list later today or tomorrow (too tired at the moment).

Damn when is my dualcore cpu coming in, that way i can check the games myself for cpu usage, supid mail service lol.
 
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snowdog said:
So all those sites about the quake 3 engine supporting dualcore are wrong :confused: ?
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No, thats just it, they are kind of correct. The trouble is, what counts is the benchmarks. As in, go from an identical single core to dual core setup, where there is no difference in the clock speed (like a A64 3800+ to a A64X2 4800+ (are those the right models?)) and you get >10% speed increase.

Quake 3 might make some use of a second core, but it doesn't seem to relaibly give much of a frame rate boost at all.
 
Caustic said:
No, thats just it, they are kind of correct. The trouble is, what counts is the benchmarks. As in, go from an identical single core to dual core setup, where there is no difference in the clock speed (like a A64 3800+ to a A64X2 4800+ (are those the right models?)) and you get >10% speed increase.

Quake 3 might make some use of a second core, but it doesn't seem to relaibly give much of a frame rate boost at all.
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Why should you expect above 10% performance increase with dualcore on those games if they run fine on a 500mhz pentium 2 cpu :confused: , any performance increase counts imo, however now i'm confused what to do with them, as i generally add games to the list that utilize both threads, regardless of performance increase...
 
snowdog said:
Why should you expect above 10% performance increase with dualcore on those games if they run fine on a 500mhz pentium 2 cpu :confused: , any performance increase counts imo, however now i'm confused what to do with them, as i generally add games to the list that utilize both threads, regardless of performance increase...
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How they run on a slow computer by today's standard is irrelevant. Many old games are still CPU limited with the right settings.

Surely what counts is if you are better off having a dual core CPU over a single one for that game. Otherwise what you are doing is making a list of games that work on dual core systems, which should be all games! After all, what you said in the original post was "the game must actually utilize the 2nd core". I gave the 10% figure as a rough gauge, but often you will get a slight boost anyway, and I take more than that to mean the game actually makes non-trivial use of the second core.
 
Caustic said:
How they run on a slow computer by today's standard is irrelevant. Many old games are still CPU limited with the right settings.

Surely what counts is if you are better off having a dual core CPU over a single one for that game. Otherwise what you are doing is making a list of games that work on dual core systems, which should be all games! After all, what you said in the original post was "the game must actually utilize the 2nd core". I gave the 10% figure as a rough gauge, but often you will get a slight boost anyway, and I take more than that to mean the game actually makes non-trivial use of the second core.
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Utilize the 2nd core as in making total cpu usage 100% on that single app, regardless of performance, instead of limited to 50%, wich most games do is what i meant...
I'm unsure about what I'll do with it now, ill see tomorrow at the moment I'm really too tired to decide.

Could use some advice from others, what kind of dualcore utilization should there be till its considered dual core ready??
Or make a cathegory with games that utilize the 2nd core, but where the performance doesnt rise more as 5 %, or owt, and keep the green cathegory only for games where it gives a noticable boost of over 5 or 10%?
 
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