3D Performance with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

[PingSpike]

Yeah, but I doubt they'll pair it with a 3600+ X2.

 

[apoppin]

who in their right mind pairs a 3600x2 with SLI'd 8800GTXes?
:Q



even a *single* GTX is overkill ... you'd do about the *same* with an x1950xt

 

[Munky]

I was hoping Stalker would show some tangible gains from multi-core cpu's, but once again looks like I'll have to wait for yet another game to put my second core to good use.

 

[450R]

Originally posted by: munky
I was hoping Stalker would show some tangible gains from multi-core cpu's, but once again looks like I'll have to wait for yet another game to put my second core to good use.

Yeah, I was hoping too. Too bad the developer flat-out lied. Retards.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: apoppin
i missed the best part of the conclusion

Another factor to keep in mind is AMD?s latest X2 pricing. In light of AMD?s recent price cuts, the X2 CPUs really become excellent bargains, with CPUs starting right below $80. And when you compare the performance of AMD?s X2 CPUs to the nearest priced Intel equivalent, the AMD CPU always comes out ahead. Intel is expected to cut Core 2 prices later this month though, so the advantage AMD enjoys now may not last much longer.

Clearly our results today have shown which component is more important for delivering good performance in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: the graphics card. You?ll probably still want a fast processor for your other tasks and games, but clearly you don?t need the latest Athlon 64 FX or Core 2 Extreme for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. The game doesn?t appear to take advantage of multi-threading yet, so quad-core CPUs will perform similarly to their dual-core equivalent, and of course, as you crank up the screen resolution you increase the burden on the GPU anyway.

So there you have it, our take on which system component is more important for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Up next we?ll be testing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with the latest high-end cards. How much faster are the GeForce 8800?s in comparison to the GeForce 7 and Radeon X1900 cards? These are the types of questions we hope to answer in this article!

forget multi-core for STALKER stay tuned for hi-end ... Part 3

bingo. Even if game is made multi-threaded with multi-core optimization, second core isn't going to be significantly utilized, that is how games are: there are not 2 things that need full core utilization.

BTW, my $54 A64 3200+ o/ced to 2.5GHz pwns your Pentium EE.

 

[Makaveli]

I'm playing it right now at 1680x1050 High detail no AA but AF, and it runs pretty well. on a Opteron 170 at 2.7ghz!

I'll load up fraps and check my frame rate, but so far i've not had any issues.

O videocard is X1950Pro 512mb and 7.3 cats

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: munky
I was hoping Stalker would show some tangible gains from multi-core cpu's, but once again looks like I'll have to wait for yet another game to put my second core to good use.

good news

Supreme Commander Uses *all* 4 Cores

bad news ... dual core isn't enough
:Q



at super-hi resolutions


and .... postmortemIA, i seriously *doubt* it

 

[postmortemIA]

just tell me your Super Pi time for 2M digits, and we'll both know. mine is 1:31.

EDIT. And 3DMark2006, my score is 4286. We both have same card.

EDIT2. Darn looks like yours is faster

 

[apoppin]

i didn't have to say anything

:Q



the EE was quite a "special" Pentium ... it went up against the FX-51 and FX-53 almost 3 years ago

of course it was *trounced* by the FX53.
... in most things ... but did really well against the FX-51 .

--especially over-clocked it is pretty fast for a single-core CPU

 

[apoppin]

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/dualcore.html

So, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. evidently benefits from the second core, including the heavy video mode. Framerates do not differ much in various resolutions. We have an impression that game performance is limited by the processor or memory bandwidth. But not by the video card. At least by its buggy drivers. Performance gain from the second core reaches 8-9%. So we cannot speak of multi-processor optimizations. Additional performance is most likely gained by the video driver, which can use the second core for its purposes.


The FPS graph shows that the average framerate grows mostly owing to fps peaks. The minimal framerate is increased, but not much. So we think that the conclusion about no multi-processor optimizations in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is proved.

BTW, "Dual-Core Processors in 3D Games" is an excellent new article about the lack of benefit of DC right now

check it out

they conclude:

Conclusions

We must admit that the results obtained did not always come up to our expectations. We saw performance gains where we did not expect them and no performance gains in games that were supposed to provide them. In the first case, we've got the effect of NVIDIA ForceWare optimizations for dual-core processors. It seems to us that unexpected performance gains have to do with these optimizations. The tests reveal that dual-core processors can yield some performance gains in modern games even when applications were written for single-core processors.

So here are two main conclusions from our test results:

1. Performance gains from the second core are generally not very large right now ? about 10-15%. Many games either don't benefit from the second core at all or performance gains are very small ? 5-7% and smaller. This small performance gain is reached owing to video driver optimizations and more efficient distribution of background and system processes between CPU cores. Only special multi-threaded games provide significant performance gains, if you install a dual-core processor - up to 40-50% in modes that are not limited by video card's performance.


2. We've detected some relationship to release dates of a game ? newer applications use the second CPU core much more efficiently and can gain more performance from it. A part of such performance gains may have to do with video driver optimizations for dual-core processors. But such games as Rainbow Six: Vegas based on Unreal Engine 3 and Quake 4 based on DOOM 3 Engine (optimized for multi-processor configurations) illustrate importance of the second CPU core for future games. That is, the number of games supporting multiple CPU cores will grow in future.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: apoppin
i didn't have to say anything

:Q



the EE was quite a "special" Pentium ... it went up against the FX-51 and FX-53 almost 3 years ago

of course it was *trounced* by the FX53.
... in most things ... but did really well against the FX-51 .

--especially over-clocked it is pretty fast for a single-core CPU

Actually it wasn't that trounced, the P4 EE 3.2GHz was created to went against the FX 51 and in games, the FX 51 outperformed the P4EE 3.2GHZ in 60% of the games, and the P4EE 3.2GHz outperformed the FX51 in 65% of appz. It was pretty much the same on the P4EE 3.4GHz which was created to fight against the FX53. The P4EE 3.4GHz outperformed the FX53 in 60% of appz while the FX53 outperformed the P4EE 3.4GHz in 55% of games (At least when paired with low 2-2-2-5 Latency DDR400). The Low latency in the Athlon 64 Architecture is where the games benefit from on this Chip, while in the P4EE the benefits in games comes from the Raw Bandwidth and larger caches, so having a very low latency RAM can make the P4EE not being so behind the FX in games, cause since it doesn't have the Memory Controller on Die, having a very low latency RAM on this CPU can improve bandwidth efficiency, hence gaming performance. An Athlon 64 cannot be compared against a P4EE, it's single channel memory and smaller caches cripples it's performance. Great CPU'S, BOTH THE ATHLON FX and P4EE!!

 

[apoppin]

actually "trounced" might be too strong a word for an intel fan ... but i was trying to give some 'consolation' to an AMD fan



from my memory ... it went back-and-forth with the FX51 ... with the FX-53 ... the general reviewer's conclusion was that the A64 was generally faster [and cheaper] except for specialized apps that the P4 is particularly strong in

yep, both excellent CPUs ... still performing 3 years later

happy birthday EE
:gift: