Are quad cores totaly useless for gaming?

william_fontaine said:
LOL, Al Shades. He's been many places, and is infamous in the computer game Asheron's Call. Mainly because of this chat log:

http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=89759306&replies=27
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I played AC!! I don't know if AI shades and Night Shades is the same though.... although that log is pretty funny ;)

Edit: Holy crap this log is a lot longer than I thought... But I played that game, he's an idiot... I thought you learned at level 1 never to stand around while someone is willing to kill you... TELEPORT TO MANSION!!
 
I have a Q6600 and I have to say I am really impressed with this CPU.
I currently have it Oced to 3.1Ghz and I am sure I can take it further.

It runs everything I toss at it and runs it very well! Things that take advantage of multi cores run really well and the performance is smooth. Anyone who has more then just the OS on their computer has many applications running in the background. Things like Norton, Logitec desktop manager, X-FI control panel, Network manager, limewire, Nvidia control panel, bit torrent, WMP… The list can be endless if you really use your computer. All that stuff needs CPU cycles and with Multicores, 1 or 2 cores can deal with all that crap and the rest can focus on the foreground application or game.

More and more games will be multicore coded in the future so buying a Quad core over a Dual core is not a waste in any regard. Is Quad core a bit ahead of its time, sure, but so are PhysX cards and the need for 4 gigs of ram. Almost (I said ALMOST) everything today can get by just fine with out them, but when that next thing you want to use of play can take advantage of 4 cores, PhysX, 4 gigs of ram, your already set. In the mean time you have lots of headroom. I say you can’t go wrong with a Q6600 any way you look at it!
 
Colin McRae Rally 4
Games based on havok
Crysis
Alan Wake
Quake 4 (not sure if it's multithreaded more so then just dual core)
I am not 100% sure though. Some of steam games like CS:S, HL2, etc series is suppose to use dual core but not sure if that translate to multithreaded
These are the ones I know of, I am sure there is more.

As we see more games released you should see more multi threaded PC games.
 
Majin said:
I have a Q6600 and I have to say I am really impressed with this CPU.
I currently have it Oced to 3.1Ghz and I am sure I can take it further.

It runs everything I toss at it and runs it very well! Things that take advantage of multi cores run really well and the performance is smooth. Anyone who has more then just the OS on their computer has many applications running in the background. Things like Norton, Logitec desktop manager, X-FI control panel, Network manager, limewire, Nvidia control panel, bit torrent, WMP… The list can be endless if you really use your computer. All that stuff needs CPU cycles and with Multicores, 1 or 2 cores can deal with all that crap and the rest can focus on the foreground application or game.

More and more games will be multicore coded in the future so buying a Quad core over a Dual core is not a waste in any regard. Is Quad core a bit ahead of its time, sure, but so are PhysX cards and the need for 4 gigs of ram. Almost (I said ALMOST) everything today can get by just fine with out them, but when that next thing you want to use of play can take advantage of 4 cores, PhysX, 4 gigs of ram, your already set. In the mean time you have lots of headroom. I say you can’t go wrong with a Q6600 any way you look at it!
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Mine is at 3.0GHz and I'm loving it. Though my E6600 wins hands down in terms of overall clock speed, but for video encoding and editing there is no comparison.
 
Eastcoasthandle said:
I am not 100% sure though. Some of steam games like CS:S, HL2, etc series is suppose to use dual core but not sure if that translate to multithreaded
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Depends.
There's no other way to use multiple cores than to use multiple threads, it's just how the system works... One core runs one thread at a time. Threads are basically the workloads for the cores/CPUs.
Even games that aren't specifically designed for multiple cores will still use multiple threads, because it's more convenient.
Those threads will run on multiple cores.
In that sense most applications are multithreaded these days, and therefore they will use two or more cores.

However, they aren't specifically designed to distribute the workload over two or more threads/cores, so they aren't getting the full performance from the system. In most cases there just happen to be multiple threads in the application, because it was more convenient to design it that way. They now 'accidentally' run on multiple cores at the same time.
But generally only one thread is actually a 'worker' thread, as in, the thread that does over 90% of the processing. The other threads just don't have a lot of work to do, and sit mostly idle.
For example, when you start Windows you already have hundreds of threads, well before you actually started an application. However, all these threads are mostly idle, so you don't need a system with hundreds of cores to run Windows. Even on a singlecore system, you don't notice anything of these threads.

So the point is not how many threads an application has, but how many 'worker' threads there are. In the above, the threads were just there for convenience, each thread doing its own thing. Multithreaded optimization is about having multiple threads working on the SAME thing. And that's a giant leap in terms of application design.
Valve's upcoming multithreaded engine will be the first of a new breed, to try and *efficiently* harness the power of multicore systems, throughout the entire engine, rather than just concentrating on one or two special cases.

But even then, I don't expect huge boosts in terms of performance. Multicore processing simply isn't very efficient in most cases.
In a way it's like snowboarding vs skiing.
Skiing is more difficult because you have to make sure that both skis keep going in the same direction and at the same speed. A lot more that can go wrong.
 
Theres already bencmarks on halflife 2 with dual and quad. It shows that there is indeed a gain. IM convienced that quades are worth it on the gamming scene. Its not dont heavily but hey whats out there now is a start and year from now sure as hell will see major gains.
And snowboarding is harder then skiing.
 
[CaM]Spoon;1031126888 said:
And snowboarding is harder then skiing.
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Let's keep your opinion out of this. You get the point I'm trying to make?
Having both feet on a single surface is easy. Having two independent surfaces means you have to constantly keep both of them pointing in the same direction, and at the same speed etc. So they have to be synchronized. You can't go faster than the slowest one, you have to catch up.
That's similar to how single-threaded processing is much more straightforward to write than multi-threaded processing.
 
How are the new AMD x4s gonna compair?
Im reading really good stuff about them and there should be 2 quades from AMD no later then fall. Right on time for my planned upgrade. Wondering if I should get the new AMD,
 
Scali2 said:
There really is no such thing.
When you go from one to two cores, you have to make all your code thread-safe, and parallelize your time-critical algorithms. Once they're parallelized, they can run on any number of cores. Even though efficiency may drop with every core you add, going from 2 to 4 cores will generally give you increased performance, even though the efficiency goes down. The increase just gets smaller and smaller... Say your code is 100% efficient on 1 core... You then parallelize it and run it on two cores... You get 60% extra performance.
This means that your code is now 160/2=80% efficient. Adding another two cores will give you another 50% extra performance. You're now at 210/4=52.5% efficiency... etc.
However, the absolute performance still increased. It's now at 210% compared to the 100% of a single core. So that's still more than twice as fast.
Just an example ofcourse, the figures are fictional, although generally you'll see a declining curve somewhat similar to this...

I think this is really very little of an issue, unless your 'background' tasks include things like encoding video or such. Just having some browser windows, email client, IM chat, some downloads etc open, won't tax a system much. Heck, even on a singlecore system that's generally barely noticeable in gameplay, especially if you cleverly tweak the task priority settings in Task Manager.
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Scali2 said:
Adding more cores, as in going from single-core to more than one.
Once you've taken the step to 2 cores, the rest is simple, almost automatic.

Indeed, it takes megs of resources, in other words: memory. Not CPU time.
Just look at your CPU usage when you have MSN, IE, Firefox etc open. Generally Task Manager itself is the only thing you actually SEE taking CPU time (except ofcourse when you happen to have some kind of heavy animated webpage open with movies, flash, java etc, but that's pretty obvious, I'd say).
Along with dualcores came cheap memory, and many people now have 1 gb or more, which greatly improves multitasking, because you're no longer swapping all those processes in and out.
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Quotes from bit-tech.net on Valve's multi-threaded project:

bit-tech.net said:
Coarse Threading: Valve found that, through coarse threading, they could achieve up to 2x performance across two cores - but only in really contrived cases. In real-world gameplay, performance was more like 1.2x% better. "In order to reach 100% core utilisation, we had to create crazy maps with dozens of AIs, things making massive amounts of sound and the like."

And, in some cases, performance could get worse. "In order to get the single player game to work with this model, we had to re-enable networking code - which brought in a multiplayer-level lag to single player gameplay."

The killer for coarse threading is that once the number of cores exceeds the number of systems you have, you obviously have completely idle cores - not very future proof.

Fine-grain threading: takes a more intricate approach. The idea behind this method of threading is to take many similar or identical tasks and spread them across cores - for example, taking a loop that iterates over an array of data. In the case of a 1000 loop process, you just split it up by the number of cores. You need to make sure that each of the operations is independent and doesn't affect another data set - but this is tricky to do, because the time per work unit can be variable and managing the timeline of outcomes and consequences can get difficult.

Hybrid threading: is the approach that Valve eventually decided to take. It is, you'll be unsurprised to learn, a mixture of coarse and fine threading. "It's attempting to use the appropriate tool for the job in multiple combinations," according to Tom. "So, some systems operate really well just being parked on a core - an example is sound mixing. It doesn't really interact, doesn't really have a frame constraint, it works on its own set of data, and so it's really happy being pushed off."

But most systems aren't like that. "We have identified those systems that can be split internally in a coarse or fine grained fashion and we then work to get them onto cores in the most appropriate ways possible."

This is the most difficult way to thread an application - there needs to be a lot of thought into how and where you do it. It is also very challenging to debug and analyse. However, it has the advantage of scaling well beyond four, eight or even sixteen cores - essential in the multi-core future we're going to find ourselves in very soon.
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Valve is trying to use the most complicated way of multi-threading, but of course, will have the most payoff. I don't even think Alan Wake is taking this approach, they're doing kind of what Oblivion already does, which is just load different parts of the world onto different cores: Physics onto one core, World data onto another, etc. etc. They aren't doing nearly as much work as Valve is in reference to multi-threading.

Obviously a game like SupCom is pretty multi-threaded, hopefully Valve will be able to pull off the same techniques that really take advantage of more cores in the future, especially in an FPS. If all future games took advantage of cores like Valve is planning, then the future is very bright for multi-core computers. But unfortunately it seems like it is a TON of work, and I think that many games will still just work like they are right now: one, MAYBE two actual work threads, as that seems to be much easier to create and work with.

Just look at STALKER, they were claiming (or at least everyone was expecting) them to take advantage of dual and quad-core.... but that game barely does. It probably just off-sets other very small threads onto different cores like Oblivion does.

So what I think I was trying to say was that if you make a game multi-threaded, doesn't automatically mean that it will start working all threads completely, you have to really fine-tune the code to make different actual work threads. Only the most determined companies are going to be able to pull that off in the upcoming future.
 
Citizen86 said:
So what I think I was trying to say was that if you make a game multi-threaded, doesn't automatically mean that it will start working all threads completely, you have to really fine-tune the code to make different actual work threads.
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Wasn't that exactly what I said though?
 
Citizen86 said:
Quotes from bit-tech.net on Valve's multi-threaded project:



Valve is trying to use the most complicated way of multi-threading, but of course, will have the most payoff. I don't even think Alan Wake is taking this approach, they're doing kind of what Oblivion already does, which is just load different parts of the world onto different cores: Physics onto one core, World data onto another, etc. etc. They aren't doing nearly as much work as Valve is in reference to multi-threading.

Obviously a game like SupCom is pretty multi-threaded, hopefully Valve will be able to pull off the same techniques that really take advantage of more cores in the future, especially in an FPS. If all future games took advantage of cores like Valve is planning, then the future is very bright for multi-core computers. But unfortunately it seems like it is a TON of work, and I think that many games will still just work like they are right now: one, MAYBE two actual work threads, as that seems to be much easier to create and work with.

Just look at STALKER, they were claiming (or at least everyone was expecting) them to take advantage of dual and quad-core.... but that game barely does. It probably just off-sets other very small threads onto different cores like Oblivion does.

So what I think I was trying to say was that if you make a game multi-threaded, doesn't automatically mean that it will start working all threads completely, you have to really fine-tune the code to make different actual work threads. Only the most determined companies are going to be able to pull that off in the upcoming future.
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I'm just waiting for EA to decide not to support multiple cores or processors because it gives multi-core owners an advantage over gamers using single core machines. :rolleyes:
 
Dan_D said:
I'm just waiting for EA to decide not to support multiple cores or processors because it gives multi-core owners an advantage over gamers using single core machines. :rolleyes:
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Multicore_slowdown=1
//This is used to give computers with slower or older hardware a chance in multiplayer games
 
Well down the road, obviously a quad-core cpu will probably be fully utilized and accepted as a the norm. Now though, quad-core cpu is a big waste imo. Waste of money, waste of bandwidth and cost of higher temps/more active cooling? Anyone who has bought one within the past 3 months or so, is going to see half of what they paid go down to tube here in 2 months(I hope you got your $250 worth out of it in the past 3 months?).

I always love when someone mentions the one single game, or even 2-3 games that can utilize a quad core cpu as a valid reason why its worth the high premium.. Give me a break.

Dual-cores are hardly even utilized yet. We are just now starting to see a greater number of games that are able to take advantage of it. Dual-cores are plenty for right now.

I think quad-cores are similar to the 4gb-8gb of ram question. People convince themselves they need it, when most likely they do not, and most of the time unable to live up to the full potential until later down the road. People try and prepare for the near future, but as we know, trying to "future proof" yourself in the computer world is near impossible. Already we are seeing a 50% price cut on July 22nd for quad-cores. I still wouldnt buy one even at $270. Just not enogh support yet.


Anyways that is my 2cents. I have always been more of a smarter realistic budget user though. I tend to not jump on to the band wagons for newly released technologies. :p
 
Citizen86 said:
Multicore_slowdown=1
//This is used to give computers with slower or older hardware a chance in multiplayer games
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Disable multiple cores, widescreen monitors, SLI and any video card over $100. That should level the field. :rolleyes: That and cover up for lazy ass programing.
 
I can sum it up to its all about CPU TIME.

If I gave you a project to be complete for the day.

Do you think its more efficient if I gave the job consisting two or three people workload for a day to one person to work on.

Or gave one job for the day to one person each which do you think will complete the project first?

given that each person are equal. They run at 5Ghz each. lol.

Also if the game wasn't made to run dual core/multi-trend.

The free processor can still focus on delay sound, control responsiveness, AI speed, phsyics, Stuttering, pauses, unholy loading, evil Lags, and etc. Besides just hogging on graphics processing.
 
Dan_D said:
Disable multiple cores, widescreen monitors, SLI and any video card over $100. That should level the field. :rolleyes: That and cover up for lazy ass programing.
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Then they will remove mouse support so that gamepad users aren't at a dissadvantage.
 
Found this new interview for epic on unreal 3.
They talk about system specs and such. check out this juicy info...

PCGH: What is the maximun number of threads that can be calculated separately? Will there be a performance-boost if a quad-core system will be used?

Epic: We're able to scale the thread-structure pretty well. There is a primary thread for the gameplay and a second one for rendering. On systems with more than 2 cores we run additional threads to speed up various calculation-tasks, including physics and data-decompression. So the overall performance benefits greatly from a quad-core processor. Although we haven't looked into the matter yet, I expect an even further performance increase through CPUs with more than 4 cores in future UE-based games.


If you want full interview
http://www.beyondunreal.com//daedalus/singlepost.php?id=10581
 
Citizen86 said:
You mean back to Quake/Dark Forces days when we could only use keyboard? Man, I kicked ass in Dark Forces!
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You can use a mouse with those games. It just wasn't standard practice back in the day and the default controller scheme didn't make the best use of it.
 
Dan_D said:
You can use a mouse with those games. It just wasn't standard practice back in the day and the default controller scheme didn't make the best use of it.
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Yeah I know, I loaded up Dark Forces a test or two ago for funsies, tried using the mouse... Could look left and right but no way to look up or down! Moving the mouse up walked you forward.... No wonder nobody used the mouse back then!
 
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