How to get the best out of Dual Core ?

[muddyfox470]

Ok,

I am about to upgrade my single core venice 3000+ to a x2 3800. Now how is best to get the most out of both cores?

Is there any programs / apps / downloads / patches I should download/apply to make sure everything works nicely ?

Do any of you have any handy tips or anything like that? What you use your dual core for etc etc.
Also is it possible to allocate resources to each core, i.e. i can set all my background applications to run on one core while I game away on the other?

Merci beaucoup

Ian

PS. I am using XP Pro

[arthurleung]

Windows will do the allocation by itself so there is nothing you need to set.

Since Dual CPU is around for over 15 yrs (probably more), pretty much starting from windows 2000 the OS will handle multi-core/multi-cpu fine.

WinRAR supports multi-threading on compression. Xvid/WMV9/Divx support multi-threading as well.

If you want to get the most out of both cores, run Folding@Home in background, it will squeeze out the last bit of CPU you got idling

[danroyle]

there is a patch for amd x2 cpus that you should get from microsoft it doesnt give it in windows update you have to tell them your cpu is performing badly and they send it google amd dual core windows patch

helps alot with performance without you can take a bit of a hit in performance

[arthurleung]

there is a patch for amd x2 cpus that you should get from microsoft it doesnt give it in windows update you have to tell them your cpu is performing badly and they send it google amd dual core windows patch

helps alot with performance without you can take a bit of a hit in performance

That X2 patch is only for running CnQ (Which should be off when overclocking anyway)

[muddyfox470]

so when playing games etc, will it run on both cores, or just the one?

does the cpus work as one to kind of create a sort of single core, i.e. for more processing power, or if i run a game will it solely run on one core?

for instance if i did have seti or a cpu intensive program running, and then played a game (ignoring ram) would the game be affected in any way?

cheers

ian

[Soneji]

It will be only one unless the game is coded for mutli core. However, you'll have one core concentrating on that while the other can deal with OS related work

[Thorburn]

You'll most probably need to re-install Windows as it'll currently have a uni-processor kernel installed.
I think its possible to switch it to the multi-processor kernel but when I've tried in the past I had some odd results (with P4 Hyper-threaded CPU's, all my dual core installs have been multi-processor from the start)

[arthurleung]

so when playing games etc, will it run on both cores, or just the one?

does the cpus work as one to kind of create a sort of single core, i.e. for more processing power, or if i run a game will it solely run on one core?

for instance if i did have seti or a cpu intensive program running, and then played a game (ignoring ram) would the game be affected in any way?

CPU-wise the game would not be affected, but you may see slight performance drop due (probably 1~2%) due to less memory space/bandwidth available to the game.

You'll most probably need to re-install Windows as it'll currently have a uni-processor kernel installed.

You don't have to re-install windows, you get odd results probably because P4 HT is not that much faster than single core.

[Thorburn]

You don't have to re-install windows, you get odd results probably because P4 HT is not that much faster than single core.

Nope, you need to change the CPU kernel, I found I couldn't get this without a reinstall (eg. still showed only 1 thread in Task Manager)

[BigBry]

I've done a few and never needed to reinstall windows to get it working correctly. So maybe you might have to reinstall windows if it doesn't show up as 2 cores (but I think that's unlikely).

[kalniel]

Make sure you download the latest AMD drivers and also their dual core optimiser (it's not in the most obvious place if I remember correctly). There's no need for the MS hotfix anymore with the AMD dc optimiser.

[Captain Fizz]

Quake 3 will run on both cores.
I'm sure there's another game too.

Basically, only apps designed and coded to run on more than one CPU will make use of them.
But...
Say your game uses 100% of the CPU... You can also run Azeureus/Burn a DVD/Listen to tunes etc all on the other core.

So it does make things rather smoother, especially when alt-tabbing etc.

If one process locks the CPU - it will only affect that CPU - The other CPU is still there to get up Task Manager etc.

Not many proggies use dual CPU's. (unless you are encoding etc)
But it still allows you to have multiple apps runnign smoothly and not fighting each other for CPU time.
(Unless you have 5 CPU intensive apps running of course! )

[kopite]

Football manager 2006 and 2007 both run on dual cores

[this_is_gav]

Football manager 2006 and 3007 both run on dual cores

Bloody hell! I can check to see if Downing is still playing on the England left in 3007!

Sorry

[muddyfox470]

Thats pretty good news, Im not looking forward to having to reinstall again, so hopefully it can be a quick change altho as i have no isopropyl with me (its at home) ill have to give it a quick clean.

Ill see what the performance is like without any extra RAM, otherwise I may have to do ayother upgrade in the near future

The thing is when I have seen task manager processor usage on dual core systems (my macbook in windows and a mates dell) the load is nearly equally shared, but my mate did say alt tabbing is a lot quicker, especially exiting games etc.

Thanks y'all

Ian

[kopite]

*me blushes.

This article is pretty helpful http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=983781