Dual Core Gaming Fix Guide

kirbyrj why would a company make a chip and hope[fingers crossed] it works on an os.again not must testing must have went in to this.

and for the record i have a 4200 x2 on a asus a8n-sli.the games that run good like q4,fear,or cod2 run very well.others like nfs:most wanted are worse than my old system.
 
hund_ said:
kirbyrj why would a company make a chip and hope[fingers crossed] it works on an os.again not must testing must have went in to this.

and for the record i have a 4200 x2 on a asus a8n-sli.the games that run good like q4,fear,or cod2 run very well.others like nfs:most wanted are worse than my old system.
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I think we'll just agree to disagree ;).
 
hund_ said:
so your saying i'm wrong and and amd has some alien os that they tested this chip on ;)
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no i think hes saying you dont understand the fact that its not an AMD issue its how MS decided to implement their power states which you are not seeming to grasp.
 
hund_ said:
so your saying i'm wrong and and amd has some alien os that they tested this chip on ;)
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Power state management is a function of the OS. When the OS isn't handling the CPU right, it's not the CPU's fault the OS is telling it to run one core one way and the other a different way. Linux doesn't have this problem. As for testing, who knows what happened. I found this problem within 1 day of having my first X2, so I'm sure they knew about it to some degree. Why they haven't just patched XP to fix it I don't know. Until then we play this little game with hotfixes and timer switches in the boot.ini and affinity changes. I guess I don't know what AMD could have done differently to fix it (which is where we disagree ;) ). It's not a driver issue because the driver that you install has nothing to do with how the OS uses the CPU (like a traditional device driver), it's only for CnQ. It just so happens to also add the /usepmtimer switch to help with the power states.
 
(for NVIDIA video card users only)
I hope this hasn't been posted already - but interesting talk on the nvidia board about how the latest drivers with their dual core "optimizations" are causing a lot of people grief (me included). It contains a registry fix to DISABLE the dual core optimizations in the driver.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=166179

I had major issues with HL2 Source crashing (with nothing overclocked)- and after weeks of troubleshooting and major VOODOO - thinking something in my setup was faulty hardware wise - I reverted back to 77.77 forceware drivers and what do you know - my problems went away completely. I'm going to try putting the newer drivers back on and using the reg hack later today.
 
seanmcd said:
(for NVIDIA video card users only)
I hope this hasn't been posted already - but interesting talk on the nvidia board about how the latest drivers with their dual core "optimizations" are causing a lot of people grief (me included). It contains a registry fix to DISABLE the dual core optimizations in the driver.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=166179

I had major issues with HL2 Source crashing (with nothing overclocked)- and after weeks of troubleshooting and major VOODOO - thinking something in my setup was faulty hardware wise - I reverted back to 77.77 forceware drivers and what do you know - my problems went away completely. I'm going to try putting the newer drivers back on and using the reg hack later today.
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Thanks...I'll add that to the OP.
 
seanmcd said:
(for NVIDIA video card users only)
I hope this hasn't been posted already - but interesting talk on the nvidia board about how the latest drivers with their dual core "optimizations" are causing a lot of people grief (me included). It contains a registry fix to DISABLE the dual core optimizations in the driver.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=166179

I had major issues with HL2 Source crashing (with nothing overclocked)- and after weeks of troubleshooting and major VOODOO - thinking something in my setup was faulty hardware wise - I reverted back to 77.77 forceware drivers and what do you know - my problems went away completely. I'm going to try putting the newer drivers back on and using the reg hack later today.
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just not to throw bad information around.

but if u just set teh affininty to one core, teh CS:S error goes away.

im using the 8.22 beta drivers and wthe affinity fix.

wouldn't go back to that old drivers, cause then other games wont work.
 
marley1 said:
just not to throw bad information around.

but if u just set teh affininty to one core, teh CS:S error goes away.

im using the 8.22 beta drivers and wthe affinity fix.

wouldn't go back to that old drivers, cause then other games wont work.
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Do you mean the 82.12 drivers?
 
marley1 said:
just not to throw bad information around.
but if u just set teh affininty to one core, teh CS:S error goes away.
im using the 8.22 beta drivers and wthe affinity fix. wouldn't go back to that old drivers, cause then other games wont work.
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Marley- The affinity wasn't a 100 percent fix for me. I still had an occasional crash. The registry fix mentioned in the nvidia forum link should allow you to use the NEW drivers minus the dual core "optimizations" BUT - more importantly, this isn't just about HL2 Source- this can apply to any 3D application.

The 77.77 drivers are not that old. Once I loaded them, all my crashing issues went away in Source. I was having troubles even underclocked - but now I've got my CPU back to 2.4ghz * 2 and I can play for hours without having to set the affinity or say a prayer before playing.... And I was so frustrated/confused I was ready to buy a new powersupply and or motherboard.
 
Ive been using the 81.98 drivers from nvidias website. and havent run into any HL2 issues as of yet. only a looping sound bug in the menu upon initial startup but thats it. the game plays just fine. I played from the beginning to about halfway thru ravenholm with not an issue.
 
Visable-assassin said:
Ive been using the 81.98 drivers from nvidias website. and havent run into any HL2 issues as of yet. only a looping sound bug in the menu upon initial startup but thats it. the game plays just fine. I played from the beginning to about halfway thru ravenholm with not an issue.
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Yes - some get the issue and some do not. It is not clear what combination of hardware will cause the issue. (and trust me - I tried EVERYTHING OS/Software/Driver-wise. reformat, reload, etc. etc.) This is the part that racked my brain - so many people that DON'T have the issue with similar hardware. If anyone could figure that out it would prevent a lot of frustration.
 
seanmcd said:
Yes - some get the issue and some do not. It is not clear what combination of hardware will cause the issue. (and trust me - I tried EVERYTHING OS/Software/Driver-wise. reformat, reload, etc. etc.) This is the part that racked my brain - so many people that DON'T have the issue with similar hardware. If anyone could figure that out it would prevent a lot of frustration.
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strange I havent ran into any problems as of yet other than in HL2 for instance when it first comes up and i mouse over one of the menu items youll hear the "beep" and itll loop over and over for about 10 seconds then all is well.
i just wish MS would fix their BS power states and lets us use our hardware the we bought!
 
Ok, so here's a question then:

Would games not always loading constitute as part of the "Dual-Core Gaming Fix?" The reason I ask is because BF2 is really driving me nuts. After installing the game, and patching it to 1.12, I noticed that every once in a while I'd double click the icon and the BF2 screen would come up (like it's loading), the CD-ROM would spin, and then nothing.

So, I'd try running it again, and the same thing would happen. I'd get the BF2 loading screen, and then nothing happens. However, if I reboot, it works the first time, every time. Yet, if I play for a few hours, exit, and then try to load it again...it simply won't go. At first I thought this was a problem with Objectdock Plus, so I tried just Objectdock (as it worked awesome on my previous system). When that didn't work I manually made a desktop shortcut and started testing that. Unfortunately that too failed.

I then tried three different drives thinking perhaps something was wrong with my DVD-RW drive (Plextor 716A). I tried a Lite-On CD-RW, as well as an NEC DVD-RW...Again, the same thing happened.

Since then I have tried the WinLauncher XP program and set the affinity to the first core exclusively. Now BF2 seems to start up every single time without incident. It even loads immediately after exiting (which it would never do before).

So, I guess my main question is in regards to the above. My assumption is that once it checked that I had the game installed, and that the CD was valid, it was confused as to which core to run on...therefore it just shut down. Is that correct?
 
_Durandal_ said:
Ok, so here's a question then:

Would games not always loading constitute as part of the "Dual-Core Gaming Fix?" The reason I ask is because BF2 is really driving me nuts. After installing the game, and patching it to 1.12, I noticed that every once in a while I'd double click the icon and the BF2 screen would come up (like it's loading), the CD-ROM would spin, and then nothing.

So, I'd try running it again, and the same thing would happen. I'd get the BF2 loading screen, and then nothing happens. However, if I reboot, it works the first time, every time. Yet, if I play for a few hours, exit, and then try to load it again...it simply won't go. At first I thought this was a problem with Objectdock Plus, so I tried just Objectdock (as it worked awesome on my previous system). When that didn't work I manually made a desktop shortcut and started testing that. Unfortunately that too failed.

I then tried three different drives thinking perhaps something was wrong with my DVD-RW drive (Plextor 716A). I tried a Lite-On CD-RW, as well as an NEC DVD-RW...Again, the same thing happened.

Since then I have tried the WinLauncher XP program and set the affinity to the first core exclusively. Now BF2 seems to start up every single time without incident. It even loads immediately after exiting (which it would never do before).

So, I guess my main question is in regards to the above. My assumption is that once it checked that I had the game installed, and that the CD was valid, it was confused as to which core to run on...therefore it just shut down. Is that correct?
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Have you tried any of the other fixes...hotfix or the /usepmtimer switch?
 
Sorry, I should have made that more clear in first post here. Yes, I have tried the MS hotfix, which didn't help (Fix #2 for reference). Then, I tried using WinLauncher XP (Fix #3) and that seems to have solved the loading problem. I guess I was just wondering if my theory was correct in that the game would start the loading process, but halt the moment it discovered more than one CPU...and therefore quit back to the desktop.

I didn't see anyone else mention this issue so I thought I'd ask. Perhaps someone else has had this problem so they are familiar with what I'm talking about?
 
_Durandal_ said:
Sorry, I should have made that more clear in first post here. Yes, I have tried the MS hotfix, which didn't help (Fix #2 for reference). Then, I tried using WinLauncher XP (Fix #3) and that seems to have solved the loading problem. I guess I was just wondering if my theory was correct in that the game would start the loading process, but halt the moment it discovered more than one CPU...and therefore quit back to the desktop.

I didn't see anyone else mention this issue so I thought I'd ask. Perhaps someone else has had this problem so they are familiar with what I'm talking about?
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I'd try Fix#1 only because from what I've seen, that seems to clear up a lot of BF2 issues :). If it doesn't work, you can always uninstall the AMD driver and remove the /usepmtimer from the boot.ini.
 
well i finally got around to testing CS Source for an extended period of time (i.e. greater than an hour) without the /usepmtimer after about 15 mins the game would lock and loop whatever sound was last played. now i can play HL2 single player for as long as i so please with not one issue..so this lock was unexpected. I just tried the /usepmtimer and tried to play CSS again. Well it seems to now behave like it should :)
however it hasnt got rid of that damn main menu sound loop bug LOL but hey so far so good :)
 
While the 77.77 Forceware drivers are a definite fix for me with HL2 Source and Star Wars Battlefront II - the registry fix mentioned in Alternate method #4 did not work for either game. (using new 8x.xx drivers). This is dissapointing as the reg fix is mentioned in the Nvidia driver release documentation. I think it's on the right track - but there are probably more entries needed, and possibly specific entries for each game .exe you want to exclude. Hopefully Nvidia will divulge those soon or someone will figure them out. BUT - word on the street is that Nvidia will have an option for disabling the dual core "optimizations" in a future driver release.
 
visiable-assasin,

in regards to the glimmering/looping when closing a window whil opening an installer from that window.. x64 does it also. plus it does it w/ my 4000+SD, just doesn't seem to like it if you close that directory before the installer is fully fired up. havent ran into it yet on my 175, but i just put that in last night.
 
Porn Loader said:
visiable-assasin,

in regards to the glimmering/looping when closing a window whil opening an installer from that window.. x64 does it also. plus it does it w/ my 4000+SD, just doesn't seem to like it if you close that directory before the installer is fully fired up. havent ran into it yet on my 175, but i just put that in last night.
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nice to know im not the only one having that freak problem :)
other problem im running into is my screen saver wants to pop up at any random time when OCed a little too far. shell pass prime for hours on end..but that damn screen saver wants to come up lol
 
Hm, you guys that experiance stutter and such, are you using WinXP Home or Pro? (didn't feel like reading thru 20 pages of posts to figure it out) Home's SMP-support is abit limited and I think that might be a reason for it, or atleast why you can't see more than one cpu in taskmanager. (Yes yes, home supports max 2 cpus, but still....)
 
knaSen said:
Hm, you guys that experiance stutter and such, are you using WinXP Home or Pro? (didn't feel like reading thru 20 pages of posts to figure it out) Home's SMP-support is abit limited and I think that might be a reason for it, or atleast why you can't see more than one cpu in taskmanager. (Yes yes, home supports max 2 cpus, but still....)
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I'm using XP Pro 32-bit
 
Fix # 5:

Remove dual core CPU. Install single core CPU. Problems completely solved!

Game Perforance: UNCHANGED

My Retail "CCBWE 0530 TPMW" Opteron 170 is heading for Ebay!

As I type this, I am thinking back to my Abit VP6 days (dual P3 700's @1.0ghz). I don't recall ANY issues with gaming. Also - I built a dual P3 1000 running on an Intel 815 chipset board for my parents - had a Geforce2 MX in there - ran several games for the grandchildren to play - never had any issues running many of the same games I play now. Hopefully it will work correctly down the road without having to do all this voodoo.
 
Do you need these fixes with the 64 bit edition of windows xp? I just got my x2 up and running last night. Havent played many games with it so far but WoW seems to run ok
 
has anyone found a fix for WoW yet? Is there anyone here that plays and does not have (or never had) an issue?

I play this game quite a bit and this stutter is really buggin me. None of the fixes worked for me and AMD isn't too helpful on the phone. I've tried xp32 and 64, to no avail.
I also don't understand why setting proc affinity doesn't work. Aren't the dual cores the problem to begin with? Then why does switching to a single core not help?

I'm starting to wish I'd went with the fx-57 instead... :(

I don't understand why some dual cores work fine, while others do not.

Why then, will AMD not help if some processors work fine while others have issues???
 
I fixed "lag" in CS, normal 1.6 not source, with the AMD-patch... Didn't do nuttin with the MS-patch.
 
I play WoW, never had issues. In fact I run 2 instances (different accounts) at the same time, assign each one to a core, but you better have 2GB RAM for that.

system in sig

I disabled CnQ in the bios, and only installed AMD X2 cpu driver, not MS. Also didn't install NV IDE or firewall either (it may or may not work on my system, but after reading forums, didn't want the hassle). Other than that, normal install.
 
skindogg said:
I play WoW, never had issues. In fact I run 2 instances (different accounts) at the same time, assign each one to a core, but you better have 2GB RAM for that.

system in sig

I disabled CnQ in the bios, and only installed AMD X2 cpu driver, not MS. Also didn't install NV IDE or firewall either (it may or may not work on my system, but after reading forums, didn't want the hassle). Other than that, normal install.
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A perfect example. I've done exactly the same as you. Fresh install, no ms hotfix, just amd driver. It ran wow, doom3, adobe creative suite 2 install, and cd ripping on 2nd disc drive without a hiccup. So my system is great.

People like you drive me nuts! j/k :)

I just want mine to work NORMAL!
 
I haven't noticed any problems in wow, other than the lower fps with the upgrade. Dunno what the problem could be. I get no higher than 64 when I used to hit 90s. Updated drivers and all. I think it could be a dual core thing. I actually don't remember if I installed the amd driver, I know I installed the ms one, but it didn't seem to change anything. is there a way to check if I installed the amd one?
 
When I manually add /usepmtimer to the boot.ini I get an error when I restart windows asking me to select my opterating system as though I'm running a dual boot system. As soon as I delete it all is well again. What's up with this?

oh, /bootlogo fixes it...

As a sidenote and perhaps this might help someone. I had my keyboard plugged into the serial port using an adapter so i could manuver through memtest after first recieving my opterron and experimenting with clock speeds. I forgot to switch back to USB and was getting extremely jerky performance in firefox while scrolling pages and a bit of minor stutter in CS:S (haven't had a chance to test much else yet) as well as dscaler. Anyways I plugged the keyboard back into the USB and everything is now extremely smooth.
 
peacetilence said:
...As a sidenote and perhaps this might help someone. I had my keyboard plugged into the serial port using an adapter so i could manuver through memtest after first recieving my opterron and experimenting with clock speeds.
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Why not just turn on USB emulation so you can use your keyboard in DOS without the adapter?
 
I've noticed that after I installed the AMD dual core driver and the Windows dual core driver, that it takes Prime95 around 30 seconds to put my cpu usage to 100%. Before installing the two, both P95 instances would immediately put my CPU at 100%. Why is this?
 
Hey dallows, blizzard put a FPS cap, that's why you're seeing that.

Liquid, what sound card you using?
 
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