FarCry 4 and the death of the dual core CPUs in gaming

[Rezident]

Progress?

I'll still buy it when it works properly, FC3 was good and this sounds similar (very!) Still hearing a lot of problems with the game from friends, I wonder if they are dual-core related.

 

[tential]

With age comes experience. Although I did refer people over to Haswell i3s over FX 6300 and FX 8xx0 builds as recently as August . . . but they were on budgets looking to spend under 600.

Nah, I never did. The Dualcore Pentium was a cool idea, but there is thing called time. You know, where things change...

If a person didn't seem like they had the funds to get into PC gaming, I recommended a PS4/XboxOne or to wait tilt hey did have money (Think, put 20-50 dollars aside for 2-5 more paychecks and you're ok).

Minimum I recommended was a FX AMD processor but IMO even that is a iffy recommendation now with how much processing power AAA games eat up.

 

[Subyman]

OP's title is a little dramatic.

 

[ultimatebob]

My last computer was a mid-high end PC I built for around $1200 that had a Quad Core in 2009.

That's over 5 years ago.

True, but a modern day Core i3 processor with just 2 processor cores should be able to mop the floor with that quad core processor from 2009.

It sounds like the developers should release a patch to get around this issue, as it's an artificial performance limitation.

 

[poohbear]

I havent owned a dualcore since forever. They were released in 2005, smartphones didnt even exist back then & if told someone we'd hace phones as powerful as computers back then they'd look at u like u were from mars. Technologically speaking it was a whole other era. Time to move.

 

[Spjut]

Most people I know want their PCs to last for like five years, being prepared to upgrade but not willing to do full overhauls.

So for me, when it comes to longevity, it's always been a no-brainer to recommend a better CPU even if it means settling with a slightly worse GPU initially.

An i7 920 was the top dog back in 2008 and it's still decent for today, especially if overclocked. Compare that to the HD 4870x2 or GTX 295, which were the top GPUs back then.

 

[exar333]

True, but a modern day Core i3 processor with just 2 processor cores should be able to mop the floor with that quad core processor from 2009.

It sounds like the developers should release a patch to get around this issue, as it's an artificial performance limitation.

This.

Plus with some of the deals on the G3258 you can get the CPU + MB for <$80. Sure, it won't last 5 years, but it will get the job done.

Not trying to push a dualie (I really suggest anyone get a 4C+ or better CPU for a general build) but it's a great option for a budget build. You cannot really beat the single-threaded performance of it, honestly, if you really push the OC....

 

[XiandreX]

After having spent the weekend emersed in FarCry4, I can attest that it is $60 well spent. I love open world games, and Far Cry 3 was amazing for me. So 'reskinned Far Cry 3' is a great thing, imho.

I would have easily paid $100 for it. Bargain bin game it is not, at least in my experience.

My Sentiment exactly. Putting performances issues aside its a wonderful game to get lost in. So many things to distract you. I just opended up the M16 and boy oh boy, combine Silencer + Red dot scope and its a heck of a weapon.

 

[TeknoBug]

I just wouldn't buy a dual core period, if I want to save a buck, I'd go with the AMD FM2+ A10 7850K or Athlon X4 (the 860K is the latest) with an R7 265 or R9 270 GPU.

 

[SPBHM]

I havent owned a dualcore since forever. They were released in 2005, smartphones didnt even exist back then & if told someone we'd hace phones as powerful as computers back then they'd look at u like u were from mars. Technologically speaking it was a whole other era. Time to move.

so?

quad cores are from 2006,

and 2005 vs 2013/2014 dual core
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/93?vs=1256

 

[darkewaffle]

so?

quad cores are from 2006,

and 2005 vs 2013/2014 dual core
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/93?vs=1256

The issue is more likely a matter of programming and logic, not raw throughput.

 

[sweenish]

At the end of the day, people are defending the recommendation of cheap CPU's for high end gaming.

It's a backwards proposition to begin with. If you want cheap, you buy AMD, and you get more than two cores. That's been the case for a few years. Multi-core gaming is finally going to catch on, thanks to the current console generation, and in spite of how FC4 implements it. There is no defense for this type of recommendation.

 

[exar333]

I just wouldn't buy a dual core period, if I want to save a buck, I'd go with the AMD FM2+ A10 7850K or Athlon X4 (the 860K is the latest) with an R7 265 or R9 270 GPU.

The 2C G3258 is about the same performance as the Athlon X4, that's what your missing. What's the good of 'more cores' if it means 'same performance?'

Add to it that the Pentium uses 1/2 the power and will scale better with OCing...either option is a good budget choice, but go for the better deal, NOT the number of cores.

This is just like the ridiculous 'core wars' on phones right now.

'OMFG, I have an octo-core phone! Dude! Your computer at home is just an i5 4C machine, my phone is 2x the speed!'

 

[Squeetard]

I am a developer, and modern programs are written to use threads not cores. And even a single core CPU can support a program with dozens of threads. A modern OS schedules threads across the core(s) and gives them time slices to work in.

A dual-core running at 3.2 GHz can do the same work as a similar processor with 4 cores running at 1.6 GHz.

Listing a requirement of X cores at any speed instead of a certain amount of CPU power is lazy, and refusing to run on Y faster cores because "we needs more cores!" is worse.

Correction. MOST programs are compiled to use threads instead of physical cores. That is the lazy way, let the os handle it. Game developers are trying to squeeze out the cpu bottlenecks by programming in parallel. Your industry has more cpu power than it needs I bet.

Threaded app: Timeslice does a physics calc, next timeslice does a sound, next thread/timeslice does a vector. Now that that is done the next thread puts it all together.

Parallel app: 1 core does physics, one core does sound, one core does vectors, 4th core puts it all together. All these events are happening at once now, instead of in a row.

 

[TeknoBug]

This is just like the ridiculous 'core wars' on phones right now.

'OMFG, I have an octo-core phone! Dude! Your computer at home is just an i5 4C machine, my phone is 2x the speed!'

Android 4.0 and up actually makes use of each physical core, my Moto X's X8 processor is technically 8 cores but 4 cores is for the OS, 1 core for always listening (voice commands), 2 cores for GPU, etc. etc.

Seems most PC applications hasn't really caught up to that yet.

 

[poohbear]

so?

quad cores are from 2006,

and 2005 vs 2013/2014 dual core
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/93?vs=1256

lol ok. U win. Thank u for coming on an enthusiast forum & supporting we need to have dual cores for gaming in 2014. Nevermind that my Samsung Note3 smartphone has an octacore CPU, we need dual cores for desktops to continue accommodating last decades hardware.

 

[Firsttime]

I've picked this game up today. Will give it a shot when I get home. Curious to see what my performance is like, I'm running an i5 760 and 760gtx. I'm mostly looking forward to co-op fuckaround mode. Although, unlike a lot of people, I enjoyed my play through of Far Cry 2, but skipped 3, so I'm looking forward to single player as well.

 

[werepossum]

At the end of the day, people are defending the recommendation of cheap CPU's for high end gaming.

It's a backwards proposition to begin with. If you want cheap, you buy AMD, and you get more than two cores. That's been the case for a few years. Multi-core gaming is finally going to catch on, thanks to the current console generation, and in spite of how FC4 implements it. There is no defense for this type of recommendation.

But always before, the i3 dual core matched if not beat the AMD four core. I don't think anyone cares if in a particular game the results reverse and AMD comes out on top; most of us like an underdog success story. The issue here is that it's an artificial constraint.

lol ok. U win. Thank u for coming on an enthusiast forum & supporting we need to have dual cores for gaming in 2014. Nevermind that my Samsung Note3 smartphone has an octacore CPU, we need dual cores for desktops to continue accommodating last decades hardware.

Same issue - nobody is insisting that we need dual cores, just objecting to them being knocked out just because they are dual core when a non-hyper-threaded, significantly slower quad core is acceptable.

In a way, we're getting exactly what we've been demanding for years: Developers using all our cores. We're just upset that these developers are arbitrarily making that decision for us regardless of the underlying performance.

Personally if it keeps the developers from having to do major recoding to support PCs I'm okay with it, providing they used some of that saved time to optimize and debug for PC. If it's merely lazy programming to save a nickle, then screw 'em. I don't have enough information to make a decision either way at the moment.

 

[DaveSimmons]

There's also the laptop issue -- only the Q version of the i7 is quad core. The lower end i7 and i5 CPUs are dual core.

I can fire off eleventy worker threads on a single-core CPU, so it's hard for me to buy that an engine or function needs to be hard-coded to use 4-5 cores instead of Y amount of total CPU power. 4-5 threads running interleaved on 1, 2 or 3 fast cores will finish the work just as fast as 4-5 threads in parallel on 4-5 slow cores.

 

[frozentundra123456]

If you look at the benchmarks on game.gpu, the i3 is equal (slightly faster actually) than an FX8350. Is someone seriously trying to tell me that an overclocked 3258 can't run that game if it is coded properly? Yes you lose hyper threading and some cache, but it should easily overclock past the i3 by a considerable amount.

 

[sweenish]

There's also the laptop issue -- only the Q version of the i7 is quad core. The lower end i7 and i5 CPUs are dual core.

I can fire off eleventy worker threads on a single-core CPU, so it's hard for me to buy that an engine or function needs to be hard-coded to use 4-5 cores instead of Y amount of total CPU power. 4-5 threads running interleaved on 1, 2 or 3 fast cores will finish the work just as fast as 4-5 threads in parallel on 4-5 slow cores.

Name a laptop with a GPU capable of playing FC4 that doesn't have a quad core CPU.

 

[JumBie]

There is a Farcry 4 fix for dual cores out. Search in google for it as I doubt I will be able to post a link to it.

 

[sweenish]

But always before, the i3 dual core matched if not beat the AMD four core. I don't think anyone cares if in a particular game the results reverse and AMD comes out on top; most of us like an underdog success story. The issue here is that it's an artificial constraint.

No, it's like I said. People are defending a too cheap choice for playing the newest AAA games. It's a backwards proposition from the beginning.

If all you can afford is an i3 for your gaming rig, FC4 and newest AAA action is probably not what you should be playing.

I had said in spite of FC4's implementation. The future is moving towards quad core, especially now that the new consoles are out. It's a lousy recommendation, and always has been. I have never recommended an i3 for anyone who wants to game.

 

[Spungo]

Correction. MOST programs are compiled to use threads instead of physical cores. That is the lazy way, let the os handle it. Game developers are trying to squeeze out the cpu bottlenecks by programming in parallel. Your industry has more cpu power than it needs I bet.

This point doesn't really need to be stated. We've had threaded computing for decades before we had dual core processors. Multithreading is required if you want programs that appear to function correctly.

Suppose I'm writing a web browser. I'm using a 14k modem on my new Pentium 2 computer, and it takes a long time for a page to load, so I want it to start displaying things as they are being loaded. Suppose I write something like this:

void load_page(string[] urls) {
   foreach (string url in urls) {
      download_content(url);
      display_content(url);
   }
}

That seems pretty straight forward. The function has a bunch of input urls. For each one, download it then show it. When I run this thing, the program doesn't work right. It seems to lock up immediately. I can't type new stuff in the address bar. I can't hit stop. I can't scroll down. I can't even minimize or maximize the window. What went wrong? It's doing that because it's single threaded. The program can't do anything else until all content is downloaded and displayed. The way to fix the problem is to make it multithreaded. The main program has a thread. The address bar has a thread. Fetching and display contenting has a new thread. All of these threads might only use 1 CPU core, but I still need to multithread stuff to make it work properly on a single core machine.

When people talk about multithreading games or video encoding, it's already assumed the program is multithreaded for single core use. They only say something is multithreaded when they mean to say the program can use multiple cores.

 

[TheSlamma]

Least we know this generation will never run out of first world things to bitch about.