Do Intel's Dual Core CPUs have the same stutter/lock up/game speed issues that the AMD X2s have?

[LW07]

I was wondering about this, because if not, then I'll probably get a Conroe CPU rather than an AMD X2 for Christmas to avoid having to go through all the hassles of installing a bunch of drivers.

 

[Nightmare225]

I was never aware of these issues...

 

[LW07]

I mean, like I've read on other forums and stuff where people with the X2 CPUs would have problems with certain games(BF2 and stuff) stuttering, speeding up way too fast, or even locking up sometimes, and to help those issues, there's a Hotfix, an AMD Driver, and an AMD Dual Core optimizer, and even that didn't help some people.

Do Intel CPUs have those issues, or is it the X2s only?

 

[imported_wicka]

I haven't heard anything about it. I didn't read anything in the Core 2 Duo reviews that mentioned game stuttering, so I would guess there isn't any.

 

[Markfw]

The X2's in rares case do, but not if you install the X2 driver and sometimes also need the "hotfix".

In the 1 in a million cases where that doesn't fix it, set affinity, and it always works, there really is no problem.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
The X2's in rares case do, but not if you install the X2 driver and sometimes also need the "hotfix".

In the 1 in a million cases where that doesn't fix it, set affinity, and it always works, there really is no problem.

So All I need to do is install the X2 driver and the Optimizer and then go from there and if I still get problems, get the hotfix, and then set the affinity if that fails? And the X2 problems aren't as common as I'm thinking?

So the X2 driver, optimizer, and setting affinity alone should save me all the headaches? And how does setting affinity work? Is it like where I disable one of the cores and it stays off forever until I re-enable the core or is it just for when I'm playing the game and when I get back out, it re-enables the other core?

And are the lock ups only while in games/applications, or do they occur when doing ordinary things like using the internet?

 

[Bateluer]

I haven't experienced any issues on my AM2 X2 4200.

 

[LW07]

What I'm really asking is if the Intel Dual Core CPUs have those problems, as all the problems I've been reading are those with AMD X2s.

http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=60070
Here's someone who installed the drivers and still has problems, and one of the responses said he had some problems on his X2 4200+ in some older games, and he said he tried them in a Dual Xeon and a Pentium D 820 machine and had no problems at all.

It looks like I might be going for an Intel system based on that.

 

[FireChicken]

I have heard of stuttering problems with AMD and INtel dual core chips. If you are taking gaming wise. They were due to a SMP being written into the games and also dual core optimizations in the viedo drivers. These conflicted with each other and caused stuttering. This was fixed by editing your video registry and removing the dual core usage in the video drivers.

I got this from a quake 4 gudie but it might help u.
http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Quake4/FAQ_DualCore.htm

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=983781&highlight=hotfix

 

[Nightmare225]

It's very, very rare. But, since the Intels are the better performers at this time, I would go for them.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: FireChicken
I have heard of stuttering problems with AMD and INtel dual core chips. If you are taking gaming wise. They were due to a SMP being written into the games and also dual core optimizations in the viedo drivers. These conflicted with each other and caused stuttering. This was fixed by editing your video registry and removing the dual core usage in the video drivers.

I got this from a quake 4 gudie but it might help u.
http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Quake4/FAQ_DualCore.htm

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=983781&highlight=hotfix

I got an ATI X1900XT with Catalyst 6.5 drivers, and I've read about how there's a later revision of X2s that don't have those kinds of problems.

I'm still considering the Conroes, though, and the hotfix in that guide says it's only been tested on X2 systems. Would I need it on a Conroe system, or could I just slap the Conroe in after installing the mobo and ram and stuff and forget about it?

 

[Markbnj]

Seems like most of these issues are caused by one simple problem. There is a timer/counter on the CPU that threads can read. Games and some other kinds of software often use this counter to determine how much time has passed since the program last got scheduled to do work. This lets games, for example, correctly calculate how much the world has changed between time slices. The problem on a dual core is that the thread may get scheduled on one core, then get suspended, then get scheduled on the other core. When it reads the timer the second time it will get a value from a totally different register, which almost certainly won't be the value expected. In some cases the value might suggest a much longer time period has elapsed, so you get a hitch or stutter. In other cases it might suggest that a negative amount of time has passed, and this can cause crashes. In still other cases the counters might be in close enough synch that it doesn't matter at all.

AMD has a "dual core optimizer" fix on their site that essentially synchs these counters at startup, so a thread can read from either and not have a problem. I don't know how Intel handles it.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

i never installed the hotfix or the driver. BF2 work great on my opty 165.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Seems like most of these issues are caused by one simple problem. There is a timer/counter on the CPU that threads can read. Games and some other kinds of software often use this counter to determine how much time has passed since the program last got scheduled to do work. This lets games, for example, correctly calculate how much the world has changed between time slices. The problem on a dual core is that the thread may get scheduled on one core, then get suspended, then get scheduled on the other core. When it reads the timer the second time it will get a value from a totally different register, which almost certainly won't be the value expected. In some cases the value might suggest a much longer time period has elapsed, so you get a hitch or stutter. In other cases it might suggest that a negative amount of time has passed, and this can cause crashes. In still other cases the counters might be in close enough synch that it doesn't matter at all.

AMD has a "dual core optimizer" fix on their site that essentially synchs these counters at startup, so a thread can read from either and not have a problem. I don't know how Intel handles it.

So all I have to do is install the optimizer and I'll be good to go if I get the X2?

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: LW07

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Seems like most of these issues are caused by one simple problem. There is a timer/counter on the CPU that threads can read. Games and some other kinds of software often use this counter to determine how much time has passed since the program last got scheduled to do work. This lets games, for example, correctly calculate how much the world has changed between time slices. The problem on a dual core is that the thread may get scheduled on one core, then get suspended, then get scheduled on the other core. When it reads the timer the second time it will get a value from a totally different register, which almost certainly won't be the value expected. In some cases the value might suggest a much longer time period has elapsed, so you get a hitch or stutter. In other cases it might suggest that a negative amount of time has passed, and this can cause crashes. In still other cases the counters might be in close enough synch that it doesn't matter at all.

AMD has a "dual core optimizer" fix on their site that essentially synchs these counters at startup, so a thread can read from either and not have a problem. I don't know how Intel handles it.

So all I have to do is install the optimizer and I'll be good to go if I get the X2?

I would never make such a blanket statement . But if you have lockups due to that specific issue the optimizer will cure them.

 

[LW07]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: LW07

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Seems like most of these issues are caused by one simple problem. There is a timer/counter on the CPU that threads can read. Games and some other kinds of software often use this counter to determine how much time has passed since the program last got scheduled to do work. This lets games, for example, correctly calculate how much the world has changed between time slices. The problem on a dual core is that the thread may get scheduled on one core, then get suspended, then get scheduled on the other core. When it reads the timer the second time it will get a value from a totally different register, which almost certainly won't be the value expected. In some cases the value might suggest a much longer time period has elapsed, so you get a hitch or stutter. In other cases it might suggest that a negative amount of time has passed, and this can cause crashes. In still other cases the counters might be in close enough synch that it doesn't matter at all.

AMD has a "dual core optimizer" fix on their site that essentially synchs these counters at startup, so a thread can read from either and not have a problem. I don't know how Intel handles it.

So all I have to do is install the optimizer and I'll be good to go if I get the X2?

I would never make such a blanket statement . But if you have lockups due to that specific issue the optimizer will cure them.

I don't have the X2 or any dual core CPU yet(I'm still on my 3500+), but I'm asking this so I can refer to this when at around Christmas when I get the X2. Are the issues only confined to the first X2s, or are the X2s out today still having the problem?

And how would I tell what was causing the lockups?

 

[Markbnj]

I don't have the X2 or any dual core CPU yet(I'm still on my 3500+), but I'm asking this so I can refer to this when at around Christmas when I get the X2. Are the issues only confined to the first X2s, or are the X2s out today still having the problem?

And how would I tell what was causing the lockups?

I haven't heard of any fundamental changes in the x2 to alleviate this issue. It's really a problem of the software not being dual core aware. There are other ways to get hi-res timing values that aren't core-dependent.

 

[LW07]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81429
I went here and got the hotfix and now I can refer to it when I need it! I now have pretty much what I need, except for the X2 itself!