Socket A Athlon, Athlon XP and Semprons Obsolete?

[Uriel]

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/medieval2totalwar/download.html?sid=6159550

Looks like Medieval 2: Total War requires SSE2 for the CPU. Never thought I'd see a 1.5 GHz Celeron beat an Athlon XP 3200+ but that day appears to have arrived.

Edit: Pardon me. I've seen a more recent developer announcement. The release version will only need SSE - not SSE2. Apparrentlly Athlon XPs will work, however at that stage of development there were still issues with Athlon XPs in multiplayer. Can't find an official link though...

Further Edit: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=70318&page=3 - Someone from Creative Assembly posted the following:

Wow the forums are running hot with demo chat. I thought I better hurry up and address some of your concerns so you can relax and enjoy the weekend. As mentioned in the developer blogs the demo is a pre-beta build and since then the game has had over 2 months of polish and optimization. I am happy to inform you that:

• SSE2 is only required for the demo, the release version of the game will only require SSE.

• Most of the issues with the Athlon XP processor were fixed for the release version of the game, the single player game works fine but there are a few residual issues with multiplayer and as such we can’t officially support it.

• Regarding frame rate, considering there has been over 2 months of work on game optimization I think it’s safe to assume the frame rate in the release game will be better than the one seen in the demo.

I will be sure to keep up to date with the demo chat and try and address any additional issues requiring clarification.

Jason

 

[mrthingyx]

Not quite - just not as fast as other CPUs.

The Skt As will trample the Celerons in other tasks and will do a good job right up to the 3GHz P4s... but beyond that, they need overclocking. A lot.

Saying that, I've got a XP2600 with a 9800Pro and it will have a good crack at D3/Q4/HL2 and anything else that's pertinent. Bar X3 - which makes it suffer in agony.

Could you or anybody else tell the difference between a newly installed SKtA and SKt939 single core system just used for emails/office work? Considering the most popular resolution in the known universe is 1024x768, closely followed by 800x600, I'd even hazard a guess that - on average - they wouldn't be too shabby for gaming, either.

Cutting edge, however? Hell no.

 

[Uriel]

I guess this shows it's at least possible that a game will appear that requires SSE2, rather than just being enhanced by its presence. At the moment unless you want to run the M2:TW demo, you'll be fine. If you don't have SSE2 it just won't work at all.