How many here are still gaming on a Single Core?

[Skunkwourk]

I am.

I admit its showing it age, however I have noticed that I've gotten improved performance in The Orange Box after their "single core optimization" update. Hopefully more games pick up on that. Hell, maybe I'll pick up Crysis if they do the same. The only game I have problems playing with decent settings is Supreme Commander, but I suppose thats understandable. Either way Im happy with my rig as it is, hopefully I can game on it with med settings for a couple more years.

 

[Cl1ckm3]

even today, there arent that many games that make use of 2 cores 100% muchless more. Crysis uses like 50% power out of 2 cores anyway but its a gpu bound engine unlike UT3 which is a cpu bound engine but a good single core system shouldnt run games significantly worse, i bet likely no more than a 10fps at most frame rate difference on any dual core game compared to a single core.

 

[natep]

Using a P4 2.8ghz and an AGP 7800gs.

I really need to upgrade soon. The CPU is starting to show its age, and it is usually under the min specs on new games.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

My 3700+ still seems to be doing fine. Few games fully use a 2nd core now anyway. Getting an 8800GT made a much bigger difference than a processor upgrade would have in my case.

 

[Riverhound777]

I was using a 3200+ till last week when I built my E8400. Big difference

 

[Furyline]

I've had my current setup for almost 4 years now, yes single core, agp, and only 1 gb ram!:Q I'm in college and upgrading it is not a priority now. I did get orange box recently, and it looks fine to me. Other than that if I get an itch for a new game I've got some old rpg's to play through.

 

[novasatori]

p4 2.53 1gb 333mhz mem (not dual channel mobo) and 6600GT in agp

its blazing fast yo.

I got it at the beginning of '03 (All except the video card, I had a 9800 pro but it died a year ago.)

 

[duragezic]

I went from a Opteron 146 to a 165 this summer for dual-core benefits in games. It also overclocks a little better. It was less than $95 and I figured I could get up to $40 for my 146, but no one has been interested in buying it locally so I mis-calculated the net cost of the 165 ($95). It probably wasn't worth it as even games that supposedly have good multi-core support don't get much of a gain from the second core. I thought Source 2007 was suppose to have great support but I don't know if it helps that much! And at higher resolutions... I'm not sure if many games see more than a 25% increase with the second core.

So had I kept my 146, I'm not sure much gaming experience with Source games, Crysis, and other recent games would be much different. Though with most recent games, I need all the frames per second I can get, and a dual core is nice for other tasks anyway. But when considering an upgrade, like ConstVig said, a video card upgrade will usually make a much larger difference.

 

[Jschmuck2]

<---

Although Crysis kicks my system's ass.

 

[Bateluer]

Nope, my last single core was upgraded to a A64 X2 in early 2006, and then to an E6600 in Feb 07. I'm looking at upgrading to an E8400, but Abit hasn't released the bios update to support the Wolfdales and 45nm C2Qs yet. So I'm likely going to pick up a 3870X2 instead. I'd like to avoid buying a new motherboard, as its my understanding that Nehalem will have an on die memory controller and the NB/SB design will be radically different and not supported any any currently shipping motherboards.

 

[Mr. Lennon]

Still running my AMD 3500 and X850XT PE here. Its definitely starting to show its age now.

 

[Quiksilver]

I am, still got my OC'd 7900GT and AMD 4000+ (San Diego Core, not that re-badged Dual Core X2) but I'm upgrading soon (got a new system in the works).

 

[TheSlamma]

When I upgraded to the E8400 it didn't really do much of anything for games for me.. but once I got my 8800 G92 frig that was an awesome upgrade.

 

[zerocool84]

Yea I went from a 3000+ A64 to a E6300. Everything stayed the same. RAM, Video Card, Harddrives. Things really didn't seem that much better except in some programs being snappier.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

I'm running Crysis on a 400MHz AMD K6-2 and an ATI Rage Pro card at 300fps, 1920x1200 with everything maxed to ultra high because I have solved the problem with solution.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Im running a AMD 64 3200+ Oc'ed to 2.6 ghz, and a 9600 with a 35% overclock.

I can run notepad with Bold..AND italics.

My system is uber leet.


At the very least, I can play games that don't have Sm3.0 at low settings.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Athlon64 4000+ with AMD x1950 Pro 512mb AGP, still plays all of the games that I want to play just fine, I see no reason to upgrade.

Waiting for Dragon Age to be released (and the benchmarks) before I start to seriously consider upgrading (if it is even required).

 

[Tiamat]

Heh...

T-bred b: DLT3C 1800+ @ 2200mhz
1GB Muskin 222 ram
9800pro 256

I play CS:S office at 1920x1080 without any problems

I barely got through HL2:EP2 which was at 20fps at 1920x1080

I will have to upgrade for StarCraft 2 perhaps.

 

[imported_Imp]

A64 3200+ stock with 7600gt. Don't plan on upgrading for another year probably. I can still run new stuff on medium, and have never been a "high" whore so it's fine. I'm actually looking to "upgrade" my PS3 through a new HDTV cause it's getting annoying switching between inputs on my receiver and monitor. That and saving for a CBR 600...

Also, I don't see anything to upgrade for in the near future. I'm looking forward to Stalker and Empires: Total War. Both should run fine.

 

[HannibalX]

I have a backup rig with a AMD S939 4000+ (2.4GHz) and it does just fine for most games.

 

[SonicIce]

What games so far take advantage of it?

 

[CP5670]

Until last year, I think dual core was quite overrated for gaming. I often see people measuring how much a game benefits from dual core by simply looking at the CPU usage graphs in task manager, which can be misleading. Just because a game is using both cores doesn't mean it's putting that power to good use, and even when the framerates increase, it's often because of the contribution from the maximum side, with the minimums remaining GPU dependent. Quake 4, for example, got some dual core optimizations with one of the patches and people were claiming the 100% CPU usage as proof that dual core helps, but if you actually played the game at typical settings for your video card, there was almost no improvement.

We saw a few games last year that actually got a significant boost from the extra core (Supreme Commander was probably the biggest example), but there were also many others released where it didn't help at all.

 

[shortylickens]

I have two machines, one a single core A64 and the other a dual.
Many of my older games have issues on the dual-core system unless I disable one CPU in the Task Manager.
If it still doesnt work I try it on the older computer. But its not my main game machine.

And I have no clue why the hell people keep saying "significant improvement" in Supreme Commander.
While I was still interested in the game I went from a sckt 939, A64 3200+ to a dual core 4800+ and saw almost no improvement except when the screen was filled with units.
It went from being completely unplayable to just barely playable but too annoying to play regardless.

 

[Juno]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
I'm running Crysis on a 400MHz AMD K6-2 and an ATI Rage Pro card at 300fps, 1920x1200 with everything maxed to ultra high because I have solved the problem with solution.

:roll:

 

[coloumb]

My son's computer is still single core with AGP graphics. Good enough to run Guild Wars and surf the net...