Athlon64 X2 dual core

[Pabster]

4400+ dual core here with ZERO problems. Except I need more cores

 

[CraKaJaX]

I had a X2 4400+ in mind for my new rig, but now I really don't know. Some people have problems some people don't. I mostly game, edit videos, burn cd's/dvd's, and browse the web. I guess I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. :frown:

 

[Kyanzes]

AMD X2 4200+
MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum (NF3U)
MSI X800XT PE
1 GIG DDR 500
550W Enermax

1., Installed AMD drivers (in hope it will fix the problems)
2., Clean install of XP SP2
3., Tried runfirst and it helped in all games I had issues with

Cool n' Quiet is disabled (not that it matters much)
No tuning at all (only the RAM runs at 2x250 however it is a pair of DDR500 modules)

Pariah - stops with error message w/o runfirst, runs for hours with it

Splinter Cell (the original, 1.2B patch) - serious cutscene slowdowns w/o runfirst - problem gone with runfirst

Pedal to the Metal - crashed with error message - official game patch fixed the problem

Need for Speed Underground 2 - random crashes - gone with runfirst

Cold Fear - I have no issues running this title (no runfirst)

Shadow Ops Red Mercury - No issues at all, didn't have to use runfirst

Otherwise all appz seem to work flawlessly had issues with gamez only.

Nothing helped (change in drivers for nvidia, video, amd) save for runfirst that forbades the game from running on more than one thread.

 

[vegeto456]

AMD X2 3800+ The only game I play is CS: Source and i was having the wierdest pauses during the game. Set affinity to core 1 and now it runs like a champ. no choppiness at all. so wierd.

 

[superfly27]

Originally posted by: Muscles
After reading this thread I've decided I'll be buying an Athlon 64 4000+ instead of one of the Dual Cores when Quake 4 comes out... 95% of the stuff I do on my PC is gaming and having to disable one of the cores everytime I load up a game is just stupid.

LOL, I found a steal of a deal and bought the socket 754 Athlon 64 3400+ 2.4 GHz for $163 US. It comes close enough to the performance of the other top performing AMD chips but without the heavy price tag.
I also got an X700 Pro PCI-E real cheap as well.

In Canada, check for prices on pricegrabber.ca or pricenetwork.ca, canadacomputers.com and shoprbc.com

 

[AaronAxvig]

Could it possibly be related to motherboards? It might be interesting if you would all say what motherboard you are using, and then if you are having problems or not (so we don't have to go back and look).

I will be getting Asus A8N-E and X2 3800+ tomorrow in the mail. Will let you know...

Might not hurt to include graphics card too.

 

[Markbnj]

I get that error with Unreal 2003, but that is the only game I have any problems with. BF2, CoD, WoW, and KOTR work fine.

 

[Markbnj]

[Of course with dual core, current gaming apps see no benefits, only multitasking is heavily improved, not to forget multithreaded apps]

Standard reply to note that this piece of obvious common sense wisdom is incorrect.

From a programming perspective these problems are likely caused by concurrency issues. Virtually every modern game is multi-threaded, but on a single CPU multi-threaded doesn't mean concurrent. When two threads execute in parallel you can have interesting issues with things like semaphores and concurrent data access that worked fine with two threads on one cpu.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: mOeeOm
Ahhh I love my 3700+ SD, no problems with any games Anyways, to solve those problems you have to disable one of the cores, this problem happens in L2, Empire earth II, warcraft 3, lets keep increasing the list

No problems here.

 

[Markfw]

All you have to do is install the X2 driver, and all your problems will be gone! If you are using win2k, you need to set affinity using winlauncher or similar software.

I am so sick of hearing about problems with the X2 when people can't even install software correctly.

 

[vxmqzz]

I got no problems with games but sometimes system just crash and restart !!
Reported error to microsoft, seems some device driver cause the problem but no idea which one.

 

[dng29]

here's my issue, but first a little system specs:

4400 x2(oc to 2.8Ghz, no CnQ)
1gig g.skill tccd
winxp sp1(might have to install sp2 now )(bios 623-3).
dfi sli-dr
2 SATA drives

The only problem i have is with racing games like colin mcrae 2005 or f1 '99-00 championship edition. it's interesting that ms rallisport challenge and flatout run fine. For mcrae 2k5 and f1, i have to set affinity everytime i want to play them. it's a minor nuisance, but i'd like to use both cores when gaming. i tried something that sort of fixed the problem. i went into the dfi bios and put errata 94 on auto instead of disable. mcrae ran fine after that, but after rebooting, problem came back, ggrrrrr. i've tried everything including adding the noExecute=AlwaysOff flag in boot.ini. it looks like installing sp2 and amd x2 driver is my only solution. i really don't want to install sp2 .

 

[dng29]

could someone please shed some lights for me. in the registry hack, what does PerfEnablePackageIdle do? and should i leave it at 0(off) or 1(on)? i installed the amd x2 driver, applied the hotfix, and added this PerfEnable key. I'm still getting stutter in racing games. This fix did help in racing game by running it at normal speed now, but still stuttering . Any ideas folks?

 

[forumposter32]

This is quite rediculous. I mean, being bashed for recommending single core processors then seeing all this crap. It's a good thing I have the courage to say something when one person after another recommends dual cores.

Maybe I'll start saving the links to these threads so the bashers can STFU!!! the next time I warn someone about dual cores.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: forumposter32
This is quite rediculous. I mean, being bashed for recommending single core processors then seeing all this crap. It's a good thing I have the courage to say something when one person after another recommends dual cores.

Maybe I'll start saving the links to these threads so the bashers can STFU!!! the next time I warn someone about dual cores.

You do realize the small number of complaints pale in comparison to how many X2's are out there already?

I stick by my dual core recommendations.

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: forumposter32
This is quite rediculous. I mean, being bashed for recommending single core processors then seeing all this crap. It's a good thing I have the courage to say something when one person after another recommends dual cores.

Maybe I'll start saving the links to these threads so the bashers can STFU!!! the next time I warn someone about dual cores.

It's a software problem, and should be treated like one.

 

[Hypnotics]

You people are honestly going to make a decision not to go Dual Core b/c of this thread. Come on, Dual core rocks. I have not had one problem with mine. A lot of the issues are in the type of drivers you install. The Nvidia drivers are buggy, but if do not install the IDE drivers and the Network drivers you will be just fine. Honestly people do some research before you decide not to go dual core. I am currently copying a DVD, Running winamp and typing this reply at the same time no slow down at all. That right there is enough reason to get a dual core proc.

 

[Markbnj]

Hey, buy whatever processor you want. Who honestly gives a crap if you have 75% the performance you could have gotten? I play BF2, Call of Duty, Age of Myth., Unreal, and a number of other games on an overclocked X2 and I have had very few issues. It is more than compensated for by the awesome windows performance of these chips.

Face it Single Core Ladies... you're gimped.

 

[Budmantom]

Has anyone tried NR2003 on their AMD X2 rig?

 

[Chadder007]

I just listed a link in the other Dual Core thread here, but here is the link....im wondering if this is what is causing the issue (Windows XP SP2 hotfix to fix Dual Core performance issues)
http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=m...e&sid=3951&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Edit: Yep it looks like the Hotfix may fix the issue, im trying it out here on my Dual Core.

 

[dng29]

I think this performance issue or having to set affinity is a winxp and gpu driver problem. i don't think it's the cpu itself that's at fault here. i'm going to try uninstalling the 81.84 driver and reinstall it to see if the stutter will go away. 90% of my games are fine except for racing games, very strange. also not all racing games exhibit the same supersonic problem, only colin mcrae 2005 and f1 championship. i think being able to run games with both core is a plus because you can do something else like encoding or folding while gaming. i don't know if anyone realize this yet, but setting the affinity to either core will also set your explorer to either core. so if you have your game running on cpu0 with affinity set to cpu0 and you encode or fold, you'll see a huge performance hit or your game will slow to a crawl. i haven't tried setting affinity to 1 for gaming and 1 for encoding.

 

[Agaruvala]

As Some of you know I will be building a AMD X 2 rig for gaming, I WANT X2 and will deal with it when gaming, But what is the finally overall solution that is both easy and works, I want something that will not TURN OFF the other core, that seem like it strains one core.

 

[dng29]

make sure you're running winxp sp2, install the amd x2 driver, play around with the many nvidia drivers(if you got geforece), apply hotfix, and hack the registry. I hope this will fix it until ms or anyone else come out with a permanent solution. i also have a sneaking suspicion that the memory controller has something to do with this problem . if this problem turns out to be the cpu itself, we're going to lynch hector ruiz for this .

 

[Hypnotics]

That hot fix is crap. you have to have Cool and Quiet enable forget that. Ill just deal with the problems i have not yet to see.

 

[rise]

dng29- in another thread here some guy fixed his last problems by removing the pmtimer from the boot.ini. i wouldn't get bogged down by your memory controller suspicion as it certainly doesn't look like any hardware issue.

hypnotics- i don't have cool n quiet enabled and this patch fixed my only two gaming issues- gta:sa and the sam2 demo.