Are quad cores totaly useless for gaming?

C

[CaM]Spoon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
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Lets be honest whats the point of buying quad core or even fast dual cores if its not for gaming?
I wanna build a new gaming rig and im reading in some places that some games dont even use dual cores. I thought dual core and quad cores are just combined power and didnt think programs had to be designed to use all 2 or 4 cores.
Anyway before I say something stupid, Im just wondering is there a point in getting the quadecore? If they are no faster then a dual core of same clock speed then whats the point in having one? what are they used for?
 
They're probably a little more useful than two m's in gaming.

Sorry... I couldn't resist.
 
If you're using Photoshop or doing some 3D rendering or some video encoding then get a quad but for gaming all that extra computing power is barely used.

The vast majority ( 99.99% ) of games available today are single threaded and not even optimized for a dual core let alone a quad core.

The advantage of a dual core when gaming is that the processor swaps the app back and forth rapidly to both cores to balance the temperature of both cores. The result is two cores both running at 50% of full power. This helps keep the heat down and makes your computer more responsive if Windows is doing anything in the background while you're busy shooting or racing.
 
Flight Simulator X just came out with a patch that makes it use 2 cores or more, it improve performnce greatly
 
4 cores (even 2 cores) only have a limited number of titles that actually use them all natively. Pieces of photoshop are multithreaded, but not 100 % of the app. Most games don't use all cores at the moment. x264.exe is the only app I know that will use all 4 cores of a quad effectively.

If you wait for the rumored $266 Q6600s, you'll be future proofed for a few years I think. Quads take more power to use, generate more heat, and cost more. If you're a gamer/web browser, I'd say get a dual. You can clock it higher and it costs less, generates less heat, etc.

That said, I'm sure developers are now forced to write multithreaded apps/games so buy one if you think you won't be upgrading hardware in a while.
 
supreme commander is one of the few games (perhaps only) that will natively using four cores. you get huge performance benefits from using it over dual or single.
 
I'd challenge people w/ quads and these titles to play the game for a while while logging CPU usage. Then report back. What is 100 % on all core? If so what happens if you apply CPU affinity and force it to use a single core. Do the FPS values double? In other words, just because the game is using 100 % of the CPUs, doesn't mean it's doing so efficiently.

I can point to examples in the video editing world where I can max out all cores on my q6600 and actually render *less* fps if I use incorrect settings.
 
if you have to ask "are quad cores [adjective]?", you don't need one. Don't worry about them. Don't ask.
 
SupCom, Stalker, Crysis, Quake 4, UT2007, and future Valve developed games all will or already do support multi core CPU's, so there are already quite a few games that can make use of it and just about all future games will. Weather a quad will offer performance over a dual is questionable though, especially since the GPU often times ends up being the limiting factor when you start cranking up the resolution and detail settings.
 
unclewebb said:
The advantage of a dual core when gaming is that the processor swaps the app back and forth rapidly to both cores to balance the temperature of both cores. The result is two cores both running at 50% of full power. This helps keep the heat down and makes your computer more responsive if Windows is doing anything in the background while you're busy shooting or racing.
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That's absolute rubbish. Windows doesn't switch apps back and froth rapidly to prodice less heat or make the system more responsive. Think about that for a minute. It takes a few cycles to move a thread from one core to another. If Windows did that every few milliseconds your gaming performance would suffer big time (stall and stutter). Not to mention that is doesn't matter if one core is doing all the work, or two are doing half the work each. Rapdi switching is going to produce the nearly the same amount of heat, maybe more since both cores would have to be working every few miiliseonds while doing the thread switching.

No, the advantage of dual core with gaming is so that the game can continue to utilize 100% of the core it's running on while Windows and other apps can use the other core. It provides for a much smoother and responsive system.

TigerLord said:
Who isn't waiting for the rumored Q6600? :D
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The Q6600 already exists, it's not a rumored product.
 
ryan_975 said:
That's absolute rubbish.
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It kinda isn't. Single threaded games will be forced to spread the load across multiple cores, at least in Win XP Pro. This is a fact.

Take UT2004 which shouldn't be multithreaded at all, with my quad I see a load on all cores:

0 and 2 have a very small load.
1 and 3 have a significant load where they both spike to 100%, but are always almost the inverse of one another (~100% on one is ~0% on the other, ~25% on one is ~75% on the other). However, if I add the total load of all 4 cores, then I have 25% / 1 thread or core at full load.

My load without any game launched is 0% (don't have anti-virus scanner, Internet connection etc.).

There will be games where a dual core will not be enough for optimum performance.
 
Seraphiel said:
It kinda isn't. Single threaded games will be forced to spread the load across multiple cores, at least in Win XP Pro. This is a fact.

Take UT2004 which shouldn't be multithreaded at all, with my quad I see a load on all cores:

0 and 2 have a very small load.
1 and 3 have a significant load where they both spike to 100%, but are always almost the inverse of one another (~100% on one is ~0% on the other, ~25% on one is ~75% on the other). However, if I add the total load of all 4 cores, then I have 25% / 1 thread or core at full load.

My load without any game launched is 0% (don't have anti-virus scanner, Internet connection etc.).

There will be games where a dual core will not be enough for optimum performance.
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I wasn't saying Windows didn't switch threads over to other cores, I was saying that it didn't do it so that it could reduce heat like the guy I quoted had said. Plus it doesn't do it rapidly (which to me meant every few miiliseconds).
 
I know that a lot of multitasking, Photoshop, and folding for the [H]orde loves 4 cores. The more the merrier in my opinion. :D
 
ryan_975 said:
I wasn't saying Windows didn't switch threads over to other cores, I was saying that it didn't do it so that it could reduce heat like the guy I quoted had said. Plus it doesn't do it rapidly (which to me meant every few miiliseconds).
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Which is why I wrote "kinda". I personally don't know the reason(s) why the load is spread across multiple cores, but I can observe it does (almost always) happen with games.

Switching between multiple cores constantly is something I regard as inefficient. However it is clear that a single threaded game is (being forced to) spread its load across multiple cores at the same time (not just one or the other switched rapidly, but both at the same time).

It is peculiar and probably worthy of some further examination and discussion.
 
Seraphiel said:
Which is why I wrote "kinda". I personally don't know the reason(s) the load is spread across multiple cores, but I can observe it does (almost always) happen with games.

Switching between multiple cores constantly is something I regard as inefficient. However it is clear that a single threaded game is (being forced to) spread its load across multiple cores at the same time (not just one or the other switched rapidly, but both at the same time).

It is peculiar and probably worthy of some further examination and discussion.
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The game itself might be single threaded, but there's a lot going on inside of Windows to make the game do what it does. That takes CPU power, and it'll be spread over to the other cores if need be.
 
ryan_975 said:
The game itself might be single threaded, but there's a lot going on inside of Windows to make the game do what it does. That takes CPU power, and it'll be spread over to the other cores if need be.
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I totally agree with this. But why this instead of using a single core? With Intels quad series using a MCP approach, I would tend to think this is not a good thing in terms of performance, because of design limits with that approach.
 
ryan_975 said:
The game itself might be single threaded, but there's a lot going on inside of Windows to make the game do what it does. That takes CPU power, and it'll be spread over to the other cores if need be.
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yeah, but from the mere fact that when running a single threaded app, no core reaches 100%, but both are fluctuating around 55%, does mean that that single thread is switched from core to core at least a few tens of times per second.

To me this just means that the scheduler in the windows kernel sucks, it should be smart enough to realize that switching that thread from the heavily loaded core to the almost idle core isnt result in better balance. It should just decide to keep that one heavy thread on one core, and offload all lower intensity tasks to the other core, not strive (in vane) for perfect balance over both cores

as for multithreaded games, any developper worth his paycheck is currently writing his/her game engine with as much (while staying logical) seperate threads as do-able. Also, any smart developper should have realised when going for dual core, that more then two core machines are comming as well, and should not have thought "well, two threads is enough for now, ill just keep those other tasks sequential in this thread"

any new game engine WILL be multithreaded, and that doesnt just stop at two threads, Quad core will get adaopted and utilized for quicker then dual core
 
DrFreeze said:
yeah, but from the mere fact that when running a single threaded app, no core reaches 100%, but both are fluctuating around 55%, does mean that that single thread is switched from core to core at least a few tens of times per second.

To me this just means that the scheduler in the windows kernel sucks, it should be smart enough to realize that switching that thread from the heavily loaded core to the almost idle core isnt result in better balance. It should just decide to keep that one heavy thread on one core, and offload all lower intensity tasks to the other core, not strive (in vane) for perfect balance over both cores

as for multithreaded games, any developper worth his paycheck is currently writing his/her game engine with as much (while staying logical) seperate threads as do-able. Also, any smart developper should have realised when going for dual core, that more then two core machines are comming as well, and should not have thought "well, two threads is enough for now, ill just keep those other tasks sequential in this thread"

any new game engine WILL be multithreaded, and that doesnt just stop at two threads, Quad core will get adaopted and utilized for quicker then dual core
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I wasn't saying it wasn't being switched. All I was saying is that there are others things going on (that don't belong to named processes) that make Windows switch things around. Yes XP's scheduler does suck, but it wasn't designed to schedule one heavy task and several smaller tasks. Previous to the desltop dual core revoliution, multi-CPU installation were a niche outside of the server market. So XP's scheduler was designed with the server market in mind, where balance is essential.
 
So having a single core say 3500 cpu vs a 3500 x2 (AMD) there wont be a difference in performance in gaming?

So as i wanna upgrade my computer in fall for upcoming games like Brothers in arms 3 and unreal 3 what you guys recommend as the best buy cpu to do the job?
 
[CaM]Spoon;1031096774 said:
So having a single core say 3500 cpu vs a 3500 x2 (AMD) there wont be a difference in performance in gaming?

So as i wanna upgrade my computer in fall for upcoming games like Brothers in arms 3 and unreal 3 what you guys recommend as the best buy cpu to do the job?
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I'd get the Dual core over the single core simply because of the gains in other tasks besides gaming. Plus my experiences are that dual core gaming still feels faster than single core. I went from a 3000+ (oc'd to 2200Mhz) to an X2 3800+ (that woldn't oc at all) and my games felt faster, smoother, and the system as a whole was more responsive (I alt-tab out of the games quite a bit).
 
ryan_975 said:
I wasn't saying it wasn't being switched. All I was saying is that there are others things going on (that don't belong to named processes) that make Windows switch things around. Yes XP's scheduler does suck, but it wasn't designed to schedule one heavy task and several smaller tasks. Previous to the desltop dual core revoliution, multi-CPU installation were a niche outside of the server market. So XP's scheduler was designed with the server market in mind, where balance is essential.
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sorry, didnt mean to imply that you did, seraphiels post however did imply that a single thread was being smeared out into code SIMULTANIOUSLY running on multiple cores, perhaps i should have quoted him.

I also understand that pre-dual core multitprocessing was only for servers and heavy workstations, but i feel that a schedular should be intelligent enough to distinguish between both situations, a single heavy game thread has a very very different "signature" than a single webserver query spawned thread. And for multi cpu workstations in the olden days, having your "heavy work related but not yet multi threaded app" off choice constantly switch CPUs would incur a higher penalty then on todays dual core cpu's (for amd x2 and conroes anyway, intels pentium D shenanigens are little different from a two socket setup, except for half the total fsb bandwidth)

anyone have any insight in how vista's scheduler deals with these kind of heavy monothreaded situations? does vista still swap between cores like crazy?

[CaM]Spoon;1031096774 said:
So having a single core say 3500 cpu vs a 3500 x2 (AMD) there wont be a difference in performance in gaming?

So as i wanna upgrade my computer in fall for upcoming games like Brothers in arms 3 and unreal 3 what you guys recommend as the best buy cpu to do the job?
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in single threaded apps, a 3500+ would perform practically the same as a x2 4200 (same cache and clock speed), save for the slight performance penalty the X2's crossbar switch puts on memory acces, but this is insignificant in real life

as for a new CPU, get dual core at the very least, the highest performing cpus even in single threaded apps are multicore anyway (intel core 2 duo, no single core version available). and games like UT3 and other future stunners (crysis to name one) will also support multi core, and if this is done well (i expect the UT3 engine to scale very well, epic knows how to build an engine) then multi core will really improve the game
 
ryan_975 said:
It takes a few cycles to move a thread from one core to another. If Windows did that every few milliseconds your gaming performance would suffer big time (stall and stutter).
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Actually, it does exactly that. Windows (and any other multitasking OS) uses timeslices. Each process/thread runs for the duration of a timeslice (usually around 20 ms), then it is switched to the next.
Only difference is that a single-core can only run one process/thread at a time (except for HyperThreading-like technology ofcourse), and dual-cores can run two at a time.
But still there are many more processes and threads in the system than there are cores.
But 'a few cycles' is negligible in terms of the 20 ms of a timeslice.

ryan_975 said:
Not to mention that is doesn't matter if one core is doing all the work, or two are doing half the work each.
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It does actually. Each core has its own cache. Switching from one core to the next means the new core has to recache the data, causing a slowdown.
That's why the OS generally tries to run the same threads on the same core for the most part, occasionally switching them around, but it's not 'random' at every timeslice.

ryan_975 said:
No, the advantage of dual core with gaming is so that the game can continue to utilize 100% of the core it's running on while Windows and other apps can use the other core. It provides for a much smoother and responsive system.
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Only if you use CPU-intensive applications. When you just have things like a mail client or browser open, you won't notice a thing, because even on a single-core system they take virtually no CPU. Memory is the only resource you worry about with such apps.
Other than that you can set other applications to a lower priority, so your game will get more CPU time, and the response remains quick and smooth, while the other applications get the spare cycles that are left, if any.
 
Seraphiel said:
I totally agree with this. But why this instead of using a single core? With Intels quad series using a MCP approach, I would tend to think this is not a good thing in terms of performance, because of design limits with that approach.
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How would MCP be a bad thing?
It's just multiple CPUs on a single socket, really no different from regular multi-socket systems.
They are great for running multiple applications at the same time, because they are independent of eachother, and it's no problem to have them physically separated on different CPUs.
MCP is only a disadvantage for a single multithreaded application... Then again, the Athlon64 is pretty much an MCP-solution aswell, technically. It's two physically separate cores with separate caches, sharing a single memory controller.
 
Scali2 said:
How would MCP be a bad thing?
It's just multiple CPUs on a single socket, really no different from regular multi-socket systems.
They are great for running multiple applications at the same time, because they are independent of eachother, and it's no problem to have them physically separated on different CPUs.
MCP is only a disadvantage for a single multithreaded application... Then again, the Athlon64 is pretty much an MCP-solution aswell, technically. It's two physically separate cores with separate caches, sharing a single memory controller.
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if you guys mean the two cores on one package trick of the pentium Ds, then also consider that unlike two cpus in two sockets, these two cores have to share a single FSB, which can limit performance when running multiple FSB dependant programs

as for the A64 x2 thing, it is true that they have a higher core to core latency then conroe, but the crossbar switch just below the memory controller is still very much more efficient then using the FSB back and forth over the chipset as is done with pentium Ds
 
DrFreeze said:
if you guys mean the two cores on one package trick of the pentium Ds, then also consider that unlike two cpus in two sockets, these two cores have to share a single FSB, which can limit performance when running multiple FSB dependant programs
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Not true though. Some chipsets have multiple FSBs, but there are also plenty of chipsets where a single FSB is shared over various sockets.

Other than that I don't see the problem... The number of FSBs doesn't matter that much, the speed matters most.
At the time, Xeons had 533 MHz FSBs, while Pentium D was 800 or even 1066.

DrFreeze said:
as for the A64 x2 thing, it is true that they have a higher core to core latency then conroe, but the crossbar switch just below the memory controller is still very much more efficient then using the FSB back and forth over the chipset as is done with pentium Ds
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My tests show otherwise. Burst speed may be good on the crossbar, but if you have unpredictable core-to-core access, then it proves to be incredibly inefficient. Perhaps because the latency is so high.
 
Scali2 said:
How would MCP be a bad thing?
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No, not that different than a SMP if not better.

However, it is less prefered compared to a "native" quad core. I am not thinking about the bandwidth needed, as I don't believe Intel's QC are really that limited concerning this. I am refering to the fact that each chip on the MCP, would have to go through the northbridge to communicate with one another, instead of doing it directly through say a crossbar.
 
Well as others have already mentioned, Supreme Commander takes advantage of quad core CPUs. STALKER's readme file claims that it does as well. I also remember something about Command and Conquer 3 doing so as well. Supreme Commander has been proven to improve greatly with the use of quad core CPUs. The other two titles I mentioned don't in my experience. I don't play Supreme Commander, but I do play STALKER and C&C3.

Now there is another way quad core benefits most all of us. In Windows itself and in reference to all the background tasks that a computer does while playing games. Anti-virus runs, Windows indexes data and you may have MP3's playing while you game. Granted, the improvements here may not be huge over dual core, but there are improvements. If you run Norton Anti-Virus (god help you if you do) then you practically need two cores for that pig of a program on it's own. (I've noticed it tends to cut any machines performance in half because it sucks so badly.)

There you have it. Quad core is useful today and it's only becoming more useful as time goes on.
 
In less than 10 years, I bet no one will be using single cores for anything anymore except the junkies that like to play with vintage hardware. Like me! I still have a working CoCo 3 running OS9 Level 2 connected to a small color TV on my work bench. FTW!
 
Wow lot of info to take in.
So unreal will in fact make use of multiple cores but does that mean dual or quade?
Is it worth getting the q6600 when it drops in price this fall or just buy a dual core?
 
Tzzird said:
supreme commander is one of the few games (perhaps only) that will natively using four cores. you get huge performance benefits from using it over dual or single.
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According to ExtremeTech "Supreme Commander uses two main threads, one for the "simulation" and one for rendering. If a quad-core CPU or equivalent is detected, it will also spawn threads for audio and graphics driver management."

I myself was hoping it would split multi-cpu enemies (the "Simulation thread") across the cores, i guess we are not quite there yet in RTS games.
 
ryan_975 said:
That's absolute rubbish. Windows doesn't switch apps back and froth rapidly to prodice less heat or make the system more responsive.
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Then why does it do it?

ryan_975 said:
No, the advantage of dual core with gaming is so that the game can continue to utilize 100% of the core it's running on while Windows and other apps can use the other core.
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Maybe you can explain what Task Manager shows while gaming.

tempbalancesw2.png


Your great theory that a single threaded game gets stuck on one core and runs on that core at 100% load is WRONG. Any single threaded task is constantly being swapped between cores.

You can also see that the temperature of both cores is being very well balanced from idle to full game load as well as during the game. My interpretation might be wrong but the load balancing going on seems to be temperature related. If the only determining factor was whatever core is available then Task Manager would be showing an equal 50% - 50% split but it never does.

ryan_975 said:
If Windows did that every few milliseconds your gaming performance would suffer big time (stall and stutter).
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I previously used the term "rapidly" which you interpreted as every few milliseconds and you thought that would be a crazy idea. A processor operating at 3000 MHz is doing 3 million cycles every millisecond which translates into a lot of instructions.

That's how the cpu in a computer works. Each process running on a computer gets a slice of time and then gets back in line and waits for its next slice of time. This is definitely happening very rapidly.
 
FSX currently (SP1) scles over up to 32 cores. in the future, they expect to scale to 256(!)

Far more then we'll use on the desktop for the foreseeable future, anyhow. I'm told that a slower quad is better than a faster dual for FSX when comparing the E6800 vs the Q6600.
 
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