How does Dual Core Affect SH3?
 

Does it improve time compression especially in the middle of the atlantic?

What I'm using now is AMD Athlon x 2 3600+ with Cool 'n' quiet on (i.e. core speed = 1000Mhz during gameplay)

Don't blame me if you have got a 4400+. I know that the one I'm using is not the best

I think that nothing changes when using high compression.
Except better stability so that the game won't crash when crossing Atlantic at 1024x or ships suddenly attack me since the watch officer cannot inform me if a DD is running straight to me

Well, it should make no difference with a Premiun 2.0Ghz w. 512Mb RAM since all the difference is made by different Display Card and RAM. CPU plays little role this time

<--- AMD Athlon X2 4800+

I'm able to run at 4096x (via sh3commander) and able to keep excellent performance/stability. Once you reach harbors or areas of high density traffic though (English Channel, etc) you have to crank it down a bit.

From what the task manager is showing me though, SH3 is strictly a one core setup, as it only utilizes one of 'em on my machne. But at the least, the other core not being utilized is helping run the rest of the system.

Yea, the short answer is "it doesn't", unless you routinely have something else running in the background while you play SHIII. That said, dual-core is still :up: and you're none the worse for getting it for all sorts of reasons that don't include this game. But it won't make SHIII one any better.

<-------AMD 3500+ Clawhammer. Yeah there is ALOT out there better than mine but it handles SH3, FS2004 and other stuff with ease. I am very satisfied with this processor considering I've had it for over a year and the bang for the buck.

Chuck

That sounds right. Having said that, recently I greatly increased the RAM in my comp (a reasonably grunty laptop, Clevo D900T with P4 3.4 CPU and Nvidia GeForce GO 6800 256) from 1 GB to 3 GB and got a much smoother graphics ride in SH3

It helps a lot when you have other stuff running because your game (in this case SH3) uses one whole core while the rest of the processes are on the other.

Peterloo: Don't you mean the opposite (that it throttles back to 1000MHz when NOT playing a game)?

I had a 3500 Venice (Bench says a little better then CH)
It ran SH3 very nice (2X1024DDR400, X850XT OCed VC)
I dropped in a 4600 DC and it was a big jump.
The reason is DC optimizes what is happening. It can direct SH3 to the unused core while the other runs the constant background stuff.
The bench for a FX-55 is half way between the 3500SC and 4600DC
It should be faster if the, "DC does not help SH3" crowd was correct. Iy is not, not even close!!
One must get the DC optimizer from AMD when installing to make this happen. It is free and only a few MBs so is not hard for dial uppers.

Wulfmann

But is this dual core optimizer of which you speak solely for AMD? or is it able to be used for any system?

RAM is a different issue. I would say that there IS a bit of a gain from RAM, though far from proportional to the RAM amount. For instance I went up from 1GB to 2GB, and I would say the performance jump was only about 10-15%. Not a big deal, but still nice.

For most purposes, though, a 2.5Ghz rig or so with a gig of ram will do. I can say that going from a single-core Athlon 2400+ with 1gb ram to a dual-core 3.06Ghz P4 with 2gb ram had a net performance gain in SHIII of maybe 20%. It ran well with all the detail before, and it runs well-er now - but no fantastic improvements.

amd optimizer
 

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/..._13118,00.html

I think that is what you're on about at the top of the page. As far as I'm aware this one is only for AMD stuff. I would imagine Intel (or whomever) might have something similar perhaps?

I installed and ran it when I got my new pc a while back but I couldn't tell you if it 'makes a difference' or not. Having said that I've only had SHIII crash once recently due to a mod messing about thing, if that's anything to go by?

What does Cool n Quiet do for my AMD 3500+ ?? Someone here said it limits the core speed to 1000 MHZ...is that true?

No 1GB is best, 2GB not best , more slow, too many location to
deal and too many empity.

Dual core it's more slow than a single 3,0 if software don't use dual core programming style.

I'm wondering how much of a difference 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM would make :). Given my memory usage (including swap file) goes to 996 MB while SH3 is running, I can imagine it's quite a leap forward... :). Has anyone made that transition? I have a somewhat aged processor though, an AMD Athlon XP 2000+.

Regardless as to what has been posted ADDING memory (RAM) will NOT slow down your PC! It will help it out some but not to the extent of "bang for the buck". That being said with todays processors, operating systems, average gaming software and utilities I would think 1gb of RAM would be a minimum with 2gb being "preferred".

Now of course as soon as Vista gets out and some DX10 this will all be rewritten again!

Chuck