Dual core vs. Single core CPU

[sb306]

Well, after getting the 4870. Ive noticed that I still get some hiccups playing DP Quake with everything turned up, except for AA, A-filtering. With the modified effectsinfo, reforged monsters and qrp textures, i get an average of about 42 fps(about). The strange thing is that no matter what I do with the ATI overclock utility, the fps doesnt change. I can go from 800mhz to 500mhz on the card and my fps stays exactly the same. Sync with vertical refresh isnt enabled. This makes me think maybe my processor is bottle necking. Or I might be getting to greedy

I have a amd 64 x2 4400+. I was thinking about going with a faster single core processor. The fastest dual core 939 still goes for over $200!!! My current dual core is 2.2ghz, the single core would be 2.8ghz and both have a 1mb L2Cache. The single core speed increase is due only to the multiplier. Both fsb speeds are identical. I would overclock, but its a HP business 5150 so the bios has no advanced options for adjusting bus speed or multiplier,( and Ive never flashed one before) So Im wondering if the dual core is really going to make very much difference. I only use this computer for games. And thats it. Thanks guys.

Edit: I get serious stalls down to 3 or 4 fps when ogres grenades explode in my field of vision(they look great though). For some reason its very bad. The modified effectsinfo causes it. Is that normal?

[haze_the_great]

Hate to tell you, but that card did not perform well in quake for me, it was the main reason i sold it and went with a gtx260 for the same price range.

as for the overclock, sounds like it's not being applied, because you would notice a rise in fps. unless your FPS is capped via your quake engine. You may be overclocking the 2d clocks as opposed to 3d clocks. Your best bet is following this guide from overclock.net: How To: Overclock Your ATi GPU - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net although, i wouldn't expect more than a small increase.

[Seven]

Hello sb306,

LordHavoc visited this forum a couple of days before and explained the situation.
There are different "effects" in DP.
Some of them uses almost only the CPU, some of them uses almost only the GPU.

So, yes you are absolutely right, that a higher clocked CPU will help you.
Especially for the shaders he described (like water, etc...).
But, due to the fact that you are sticked to the 939 platform,
higher clocked CPUs are rarely available and much too expensive (because of the low quantity left).
Best would be of course to buy a set (mainboard + CPU).
But thats a matter of price of course.

At the time, that you went from 4850 to 4870 I wanted to warn you,
but it was too late. You already ordered the card.
The much better choice would have been the GTX460.
It costs the same but is better in every aspect.

Regarding the effectinfo-driven FPS drops:
Yes, that is normal.

Kind Regards,
Seven

[sb306]

Hello sb306,

LordHavoc visited this forum a couple of days before and explained the situation.
There are different "effects" in DP.
Some of them uses almost only the CPU, some of them uses almost only the GPU.

So, yes you are absolutely right, that a higher clocked CPU will help you.
Especially for the shaders he described (like water, etc...).
But, due to the fact that you are sticked to the 939 platform,
higher clocked CPUs are rarely available and much too expensive (because of the low quantity left).
Best would be of course to buy a set (mainboard + CPU).
But thats a matter of price of course.

At the time, that you went from 4850 to 4870 I wanted to warn you,
but it was too late. You already ordered the card.
The much better choice would have been the GTX460.
It costs the same but is better in every aspect.

Regarding the effectinfo-driven FPS drops:
Yes, that is normal.

Kind Regards,
Seven

Thanks guys. I might try some older drivers as far as the video card. Its strange though, I would think that the overclocks arent working, but I had overclocked too much one time and had to go into safe mode to disable the driver etc. Because anytime going to a normal windows startup would cause the computer to crash as soon as the catalyst control center loaded in the the taskbar. I looked up that gtx460 and its about $60 more than I spent on the 4870 though. Is the problem ATI, or just the 4870? Its tough because everything works great right now. Except for the lagginess in Quake, and thats only with everything turned up.

Should I theoretically be able to run DP with qrp, reforged monsters, pretty water, etc etc without lag with my 64 x2 4400 and any video card under say $200?

I was looking at getting a mobo cpu combo, but the current setup is rockstable, so I thought just switching the cpu would leave less possibilities for headaches having to do with swapping out a full mobo.

So with how I use my computer(games), would a 2.8ghz single core be better for me than a 2.2ghz dual core? I would actually be able to make my money back selling the dual core on ebay. Theres a single core 2.8ghz amd 64 on ebay now for $120.

[sb306]

Hate to tell you, but that card did not perform well in quake for me, it was the main reason i sold it and went with a gtx260 for the same price range.

as for the overclock, sounds like it's not being applied, because you would notice a rise in fps. unless your FPS is capped via your quake engine. You may be overclocking the 2d clocks as opposed to 3d clocks. Your best bet is following this guide from overclock.net: How To: Overclock Your ATi GPU - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net although, i wouldn't expect more than a small increase.

Its funny, because I read that same thread yesterday trying to do some research for my problem.I think Ill try that MSI Afterburner tomorrow though. It couldnt hurt.

[Seven]

Hello sb306,

your specific question:

Should I theoretically be able to run DP with qrp, reforged monsters, pretty water, etc etc without lag with my 64 x2 4400 and any video card under say $200?

A) With all 3 shaders (water, teleporter and lava), RT World and Parallax Mapping: No.
B) With only 1 shader (water) , RT World and Parallax Mapping: I think yes

I use the GTX260 GPU and the old Q6700 CPU. Thats enough for example B).
(it will drop till around 30 FPS sometimes, wich is still playable in SP).


GPU GTX460 costs 130 € (768MB) and 150 € (1024MB).
This card is the best choice for a mainstream card under 150 € (= 200 USD).
Comparable product from ATI: HD6850 (1024MB) costs 150 € (= 200 USD),
its slightly faster, but its still an ATI (with all negs you can read about in this forum).


your specific question:

So with how I use my computer(games), would a 2.8ghz single core be better for me than a 2.2ghz dual core?

It seems that the frequency is most important for DP, so yes, that yould help.
But you dont need to buy the new combo to try.
Simply overclock your CPU will bring the result.
But then, you would have other negative things for other games.
All modern games (yes, there are others than Quake) use multiple cores.
So they will suffer....

Its a hard decision for you sb306.
Lets see what other users are saying in this thread.

Kind Regrads,
Seven

[sb306]

Hello sb306,

your specific question:


A) With all 3 shaders (water, teleporter and lava), RT World and Parallax Mapping: No.
B) With only 1 shader (water) , RT World and Parallax Mapping: I think yes

I use the GTX260 GPU and the old Q6700 CPU. Thats enough for example B).
(it will drop till around 30 FPS sometimes, wich is still playable in SP).


GPU GTX460 costs 130 � (768MB) and 150 � (1024MB).
This card is the best choice for a mainstream card under 150 � (= 200 USD).
Comparable product from ATI: HD6850 (1024MB) costs 150 � (= 200 USD),
its slightly faster, but its still an ATI (with all negs you can read about in this forum).


your specific question:

It seems that the frequency is most important for DP, so yes, that yould help.
But you dont need to buy the new combo to try.
Simply overclock your CPU will bring the result.
But then, you would have other negative things for other games.
All modern games (yes, there are others than Quake) use multiple cores.
So they will suffer....

Its a hard decision for you sb306.
Lets see what other users are saying in this thread.

Kind Regrads,
Seven

Thats one thing I was worried about as far as newer games. Ive been playing Star Craft 2 and it seems to run fine at 1600x1200 with everything turned up. Crysis runs pretty well also, so I dont want to do anything to screw up how everything runs. I dont remember seeing anyone negatives about the Radeons.

DP averages 56 fps with rtl on. Just turning rtl off bumped it up to 105fps.

[Bloodshot]

I have a 4870 x2, and with RT lights on i get 100+ FPS - if i enable shadowmapping, it drops to 40-50 in areas with many shadows. Of course mine might just run better because 1. i have a slightly better card and 2. my CPU is 2.93 ghz Core i7, so i got 8 cores

I definitely suggest you try overclocking your CPU. It ain't even that much of a risk - my friend OC'd his CPU from 2.3 to 2.7 Ghz with poor cooling and he didn't have problems.

He did try to push it more but im not sure the outcome of that.

And yeah, your processor is definitely not bottlenecking if you can run Crysis pretty good. On my old computer with an 8800 gt and a single core i got 8-12 fps in Crysis on ANY setting, that's bottlenecking .

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Well, after getting the 4870. Ive noticed that I still get some hiccups playing DP Quake with everything turned up

-snip-

This is surely relating to some random service or application running in the background. Your PC obviously has the cojones to run DP , however your PC is "doing something" at intervals just as you suggestd.

Since you have eyefinity capability, I recommend having Task Manager open and visible on monitor 2, and play DarkPlaces as normal. and keep an eye out for the culprit thats stealing your cpu cycles when you need them most (graphically demanding Quake session in darkplaces!)

[sb306]

I have a 4870 x2, and with RT lights on i get 100+ FPS - if i enable shadowmapping, it drops to 40-50 in areas with many shadows. Of course mine might just run better because 1. i have a slightly better card and 2. my CPU is 2.93 ghz Core i7, so i got 8 cores

I definitely suggest you try overclocking your CPU. It ain't even that much of a risk - my friend OC'd his CPU from 2.3 to 2.7 Ghz with poor cooling and he didn't have problems.

He did try to push it more but im not sure the outcome of that.

And yeah, your processor is definitely not bottlenecking if you can run Crysis pretty good. On my old computer with an 8800 gt and a single core i got 8-12 fps in Crysis on ANY setting, that's bottlenecking .

(Update)Thats strange, if I turn off HDR and enable everything else I can still manage to pull an average of about 60fps. That 4870 X2 is more or less equal to a pair of 4870s crossfired. So its more than just "slightly" better. Now I have no idea if DP utilizes 2 gpus.

I would OC, But its a generic HP Business computer, so the bios has no OCing options.

-snip-

This is surely relating to some random service or application running in the background. Your PC obviously has the cojones to run DP , however your PC is "doing something" at intervals just as you suggestd.

Since you have eyefinity capability, I recommend having Task Manager open and visible on monitor 2, and play DarkPlaces as normal. and keep an eye out for the culprit thats stealing your cpu cycles when you need them most (graphically demanding Quake session in darkplaces!)

Well, I would but I dont have a second monitor to hook up. This computer has nothing on it except what was installed from WIN XP. Theres nothing running in the background besides the ATI Catalyst center thing. The thing is it runs fine until the Ogre tosses grenades at me. I was playing E1M6 the other day and in the hallway with the huge press with spikes, once the Ogres started tossing grenades it was impossible to play. But after the grenades blew up it was fine(I was usually dead though). But as Seven said. The slowdown is probably because of the effectsinfo. Its runs fine without it.

Im just trying to optimize everything I guess. Thats why I was wondering if a faster single core would be quicker than a slower dual core.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

buying new hardware for such an old game in 2010, we are the few, we are the elite!

[Bloodshot]

we are the few, we are the elite!

We are the Quake Marines!




....oh wait that's proud.

[inkub0]

Darkplaces must be tuned for multi CPU and multi GPU... but i wait, time will help us all =)

[yuggsoth]

Hey, I have a similar problem with grenades to the face causing me massive frame rate drops. What setting do I need to change in order to get rid of that lag spike?

AMD Athlon II X2 P340
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250

DarkPlaces (latest beta)
QRP textures
ReForged monsters
Pretty Water
Seven's small mods
weather .ents
VISed maps

EFFECTS: Full
LIGHTING: Full, with the exception of RT World: off

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Darkplaces must be tuned for multi CPU and multi GPU... but i wait, time will help us all =)

are you using a dual/tri/quad core cpu? is anyone else in quakeland utilizing two gpus besides me?