that's what I was thinking. so maybe a 3800+ single core will perform better than a 3800+ X2.

Quote from Tube :

that's what I was thinking. so maybe a 3800+ single core will perform better than a 3800+ X2.

Well, actually not "maybe"; I can guarantee that the single core one would be faster.

Why? Because the 3800+ clocks at 2.4GHz while the X2 variant only at 2GHz. They have the same rating because in theory they should yield the same overall speed, but in LFS, where only one core is utilized, with the X2 you effectively run a CPU that is 400MHz slower.

i think it LFS'll surely go multi-core sometime in near future.

Near future?

Quote from Scawen :

It can't be done very quickly. It would need the graphics and physics to be decoupled and run on separate threads. The method for doing this properly also brings certain other benefits, due to the interpolation between frames possibilities. In other words, the required changes lead on to other things, which should be done at the same time.

It would be about a months work, as a rough guess. I expect to do this some time, as multiple cores seem to be the way of the future. Actually I'm expecting to do this in a future version, after S2, when we could use the extra CPU time to do some things in higher resolution on more powerful computers, while maintaining physical compatibility with slower computers.

He even said it in THIS thread...

i missed that...

i thought the gpu did the graphics things and the cpu did the physics...He says one of the cores would do the graphics and the other physics. what will the gpu do then? i'm confused.

Well, the GPU renders the graphics, but there must be still someone who feeds the GPU with actual data to render. Or do you think the graphics card magically knows that car X is at position Y without the CPU telling it?

I'm using an AMD64 X2 3800 with a gig of DDR2 (533) and a 7600GT. My MB is an Asus M2N SLI-Deluxe. At the rear of a full field of AI at Blackwood in 1280 x 960 with AF and AA maxed I'm getting 30-35 fps. Once the field thins out I'm getting 50-60 solidly, and up to about 70 in clean air. I'm very happy with this performance.

Although the dual core might lose a bit of performance in single core games compared to a single core CPU of similar speed, the DDR2 RAM helps to pick up the slack, and an Nforce chipset MB also helps a little bit. My next move will be to drop another 7600GT in SLI and add another gig of DDR2, and that should do for a while I think.

I play Oblivion at full graphics with few slow downs to report (though Oblivion is optimised for dual core already) though these small issues are probably more RAM or video related than CPU.

The bottom line for me is, I get fantastic performance from my dual core PC and LFS has no noticeable lag and the inputs are smooth. The decision to go dual core was not easy to make, but if you are in the market for a new PC it is worth considering. I really have no complaints about it at all so far.
As more programs embrace dual core I think my decision will pay off in spades.

Quote from ZORER :

i missed that...

i thought the gpu did the graphics things and the cpu did the physics...He says one of the cores would do the graphics and the other physics. what will the gpu do then? i'm confused.

I'm no programmer, but my guess is that the core that does the graphics will tell the GPU what graphics to draw.

Quote from Gunn :

I'm using an AMD64 X2 3800 with a gig of DDR2 (533) and a 7600GT. My MB is an Asus M2N SLI-Deluxe. At the rear of a full field of AI at Blackwood in 1280 x 960 with AF and AA maxed I'm getting 30-35 fps. Once the field thins out I'm getting 50-60 solidly, and up to about 70 in clean air. I'm very happy with this performance.

i think 60FPS average is very poor for that rig

i dont get it, in my old rig (x64 3000+ 939 w/ 9800pro) have much more FPS, 45/50 fps at the grid and 65/90 with 1 or 2 cars on front, never drop from 65.

now with my new system, AM2 x2 3600+ w/ 7600GT get 30/35 at start and 60fps average in race, i think is a very big diference. I undertand that dual core processor can be a bit slower for games that not support it, but.. is too much.

Also notice that other sims are running a bit slower, not much as LFS, but slower than before.

A lot of cpu time is done on graphics related things, the GPU is responsible for the final render, but the cpu does things to and for the graphics. For instance, a GPU will render particles of dust, but the cpu creates and places them according to things that happen within the game.

Sometimes the CPU and the GPU will work together, take the same smoke particle and imagine it growing larger as it fades out, the CPU might tell the GPU to move each of the four corner points (vertices) out from the middle (actually it will apply a global scale for speed).

EDIT: PS Scawen: If you haven't already can you please rotate [roll] the smoke particles randomly please, so that dense smoke doesnt look repeated ! I havn't tried in recent patches but last time I put the smoke density up you could see each billboard was oriented the same and it looked quite bad.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Well, the GPU renders the graphics, but there must be still someone who feeds the GPU with actual data to render. Or do you think the graphics card magically knows that car X is at position Y without the CPU telling it?

I knew it but didn't think it was a hard job to send the actual data to the gpu...

Quote from dEiCidE :

i think 60FPS average is very poor for that rig

I'm not getting 60fps average, I'm getting 60 fps solid (with a full field of AI). The average is more like 70-75. Since I lock LFS down at 60 fps anyway, it is perfectly satisfactory for me. Some people would overclock in this situation but I see no need. If I want to back off the resolution and AA I get plenty of fps, but maxed out it's working great.

Quote from ZORER :

I knew it but didn't think it was a hard job to send the actual data to the gpu...

Compared to the physics calculations it's not a hard job, but still, to make any use of dual core you need seperate "things" to do for each core. Graphics and physics are just the prime target for that, because it's relatively easy to seperate them logically.

It's like, a surgeon doing a heart operation, and suddenly you throw in a second surgeon and expect them to be finished twice as fast. It simply doesn't work. You could let the second one remove the appendix for example - that would be seperate things to do - but both working at the heart is impossible. It's about the same with multiple CPU's

Quote from AndroidXP :

Compared to the physics calculations it's not a hard job, but still, to make any use of dual core you need seperate "things" to do for each core. Graphics and physics are just the prime target for that, because it's relatively easy to seperate them logically.

It's like, a surgeon doing a heart operation, and suddenly you throw in a second surgeon and expect them to be finished twice as fast. It simply doesn't work. You could let the second one remove the appendix for example - that would be seperate things to do - but both working at the heart is impossible. It's about the same with multiple CPU's

ok thx for the explanation.

so how about one core doing the 1s and the other core doing the 0s.???
hahahah. joke.

I applied the Windows Hotfix yesterday and I seem to be getting an extra 7 or 8 frames per second in LFS, though I haven't done a lot of testing.