How does Dual Core Affect SH3?

Originally Posted by CCIP

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 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.

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

[nightdagger]

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)?

[Wulfmann]

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

[baggygreen]

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

[jumpy]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

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

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?

[Tachyon]

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

[1mPHUNit0]

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.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Kiwi Commandant

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

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.