What games actually use dual core?

BS Dave · 13 Jul 2006 at 23:48

And what ones are planned?

thinking of upgrading my SD to a x2 4400, but is it really worth it yet??

Is there a list of supported dual core games anywhere??

chris06 · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:17

dont think theres a definitive list but i know Quake 4 and call of duty 2 both have dual core patches.

Vai · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:19

Crysis & UT2007 will be. Not sure of any others yet.

Energize · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:20

Oblivion ever so slightly uses the 2nd core. Dual core cpus arent really work it atm for games, your cpu is already 2.6ghz which is equal to an fx-60 in games, add to that the fact that gpus are the bottlenecks not the cpus and there isnt much point in upgrading atm, the longer you wait to upgrade the cheaper the cpu will be and the more games will support dual core.

chris06 · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:23

The first patch that will be released for Prey will apparantly make the game take advantage of dual core.

Logsi · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:36

I think BF2 is, but im not 100%. Prey definately isnt at the moment, been playing it all day and you can tell it doesnt. King Kong does!!!! Not like you'll play that game any time soon.

I googled it a few days ago as i just went to dual core, google dual core optimized games.

chris06 · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:50

Not sure about BF2? Think a lot of people have reported problems with it although it seems to work for ok for me

skullman · 14 Jul 2006 at 01:00

Energize said:
add to that the fact that gpus are the bottlenecks not the cpus

Well thats not entirely true. A lot of games are bottlenecked by the cpu. Take a look at some Conroe benchmarks and you'll see what I mean. Oblivion running on a Conroe setup is significantly faster than an AMD equivalent. Anyway I don't think it would be worth him upgrading from what hes got to an x2 4400, not until the upcoming price drops anyway at least. In which case it might be a better option to buy an x2 3800 and overclock it - Should achieve good results on that board.

Yewen · 14 Jul 2006 at 01:03

BF2 is single threaded, only runs on the one core, but can get cripled if it is set to affinity on both cores.

Cracking example of a poorly coded game with people who make patches that break it.

Energize · 14 Jul 2006 at 01:08

skullman said:
Well thats not entirely true. A lot of games are bottlenecked by the cpu. Take a look at some Conroe benchmarks and you'll see what I mean. Oblivion running on a Conroe setup is significantly faster than an AMD equivalent.

I know thats not always true but mostly, oblivion is more cpu dependant game than most, because it doesnt seem to benefit that much from dual core I would bet that the performance gained from conroe could be gotten by overclocking a single core cpu.

skullman · 14 Jul 2006 at 01:18

Energize said:
I know thats not always true but mostly, oblivion is more cpu dependant game than most, because it doesnt seem to benefit that much from dual core I would bet that the performance gained from conroe could be gotten by overclocking a single core cpu.

Yeah I agree. I dunno why the performance increase in Oblivion with dual-core is so small. You'd think with such a demanding game it would be optimized better. I guess a lot of different factors come into play.

Energize · 14 Jul 2006 at 01:24

Its very poorly optimized, people with the best systems get low framerates, there are still tons of errors and crashes, and anyone with under a 9550 (which is suprisingly a lot of people) cant play the game at all, even with oldblivion used to bypass the need for sm3. The offical hardware forums for it are flooded with people having problems with install errors and then the game not starting or it only using 5% of their 2nd core.

moody · 14 Jul 2006 at 09:50

Football Manager uses both cores.

HangTime · 14 Jul 2006 at 09:57

A 2.6ghz SD is still pretty nippy for games. I wouldn't bother going for dual core yet unless you definitely think you need it.

You will be better off making that your last rig on the S939 platform, saving your pennies and buying a Conroe setup when the time is right.

modo77 · 14 Jul 2006 at 10:09

Energize said:
Oblivion ever so slightly uses the 2nd core. Dual core cpus arent really work it atm for games, your cpu is already 2.6ghz which is equal to an fx-60 in games, add to that the fact that gpus are the bottlenecks not the cpus and there isnt much point in upgrading atm, the longer you wait to upgrade the cheaper the cpu will be and the more games will support dual core.

Oblivion uses the 2nd core fully. I upgraded from 64 3500 to a 3800 X2 and my fps very nearly doubled.

drunkenmaster · 14 Jul 2006 at 10:14

skullman said:
Well thats not entirely true. A lot of games are bottlenecked by the cpu. Take a look at some Conroe benchmarks and you'll see what I mean. Oblivion running on a Conroe setup is significantly faster than an AMD equivalent. Anyway I don't think it would be worth him upgrading from what hes got to an x2 4400, not until the upcoming price drops anyway at least. In which case it might be a better option to buy an x2 3800 and overclock it - Should achieve good results on that board.

no no no, oblivion on a 7900gtx at 1024x768 is cpu limited because the gpu is too powerful for the resolution. read anandtech's review they state before and after their game benchmarks that they ran in 1600x1200 no aa/af to make it a little gpu limited(but they were using crossfire and it really wasn't at all gpu limited), then they ran at lower res to show the difference between the cpu's, they ran at 640x480. check [h]'s review, they really are only a gaming site so aimed the review at gaming. they ran first, with a single 7900gtx at 1600x1200 full quality(little off top in oblivion) with a fx 62, x6800 and e6700 all showing within 1fps for min, max and average framerates. that was on oblivion, errm, wow, and a couple other games all with basically same scores. even at 1280x1024 with full in game settings but no aa/af they were very very similar fps, well above playable(in the 100's average) and were still close to gpu limited.

there is not a game available that is cpu limited when you play at the resolution that your gfx can handle. ie if you have a 1900xt/7900gtx you will basically never be cpu limited at 1280x1024 full quality or 1600x1200 some to full quality, depending on the game 1280x1024 might be max for the gpu, other games like hl2 1600x1200 4xaa/16xaf/hdr then again you will be gpu limited only.

Ozzie Dave · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:21

Be a while before I consider a dual core, there is just not enough games supporting it properly. And anyway, as has been mentioned it would only cause bottlenecks if your other hardware wasn't top notch.

I'm building a new rig next year and will see what's available then. In the meantime if I did a partial upgrade it would be to a slightly faster single core cpu and memory...

Malkie · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:22

City of villians uses both cores

skullman · 14 Jul 2006 at 12:47

drunkenmaster said:
no no no, oblivion on a 7900gtx at 1024x768 is cpu limited because the gpu is too powerful for the resolution. read anandtech's review they state before and after their game benchmarks that they ran in 1600x1200 no aa/af to make it a little gpu limited(but they were using crossfire and it really wasn't at all gpu limited), then they ran at lower res to show the difference between the cpu's, they ran at 640x480. check [h]'s review, they really are only a gaming site so aimed the review at gaming. they ran first, with a single 7900gtx at 1600x1200 full quality(little off top in oblivion) with a fx 62, x6800 and e6700 all showing within 1fps for min, max and average framerates. that was on oblivion, errm, wow, and a couple other games all with basically same scores. even at 1280x1024 with full in game settings but no aa/af they were very very similar fps, well above playable(in the 100's average) and were still close to gpu limited.

there is not a game available that is cpu limited when you play at the resolution that your gfx can handle. ie if you have a 1900xt/7900gtx you will basically never be cpu limited at 1280x1024 full quality or 1600x1200 some to full quality, depending on the game 1280x1024 might be max for the gpu, other games like hl2 1600x1200 4xaa/16xaf/hdr then again you will be gpu limited only.

Well Oblivion may have been a bad example, but we are now starting to see games which feature more complex physics/AI, and until a decent dedicated physics-handling solution takes off...this job is left for the cpu to handle.

Quote from AnandTech:
"In terms of sheer ability to process physics and AI as well as feed a hungry graphics subsystem, Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 is anywhere between 22 and 55% faster than AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62."

While it may not mean so much now, it will soon. A lot of enthusiasts who run a high-end setup will be eagerly awaiting Conroe. And at the rate gfx cards are evolving and becoming ever-more powerful, and as games become more complex, cpu's will need to keep up.

helpimcrap · 14 Jul 2006 at 16:28

and i think the moral of this is that modern games are generally very poorly coded.

if they were better coded we wouldnt need half the hardware we do now.

DID were the best at optimising code... their early flight sims rocked!