Epic: Will UT2007 (PC) use more than one core?

[Wowbagger]

It looks like Intels Core 2 Duo will be a huge success and after reading Tim Sweeneys interview about how hard it is to code for multiple cores plus Villhavens post about GoW running on 2 cores atm, i just wonder if UT2007 (PC) will too?

Gawd! that was a long and ****ed up sentence :)

[The5thviruz]

They said it would before...

[Wowbagger]

Really? link please.

[The5thviruz]

This is what I found from google. I can't be bothered to look for an official announcement really.

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/archive/index.php/t-158695.html

[Cleary]

Also would it need a DX10 GFX card to play it?

[Wowbagger]

This is what I found from google. I can't be bothered to look for an official announcement really.

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/archive/index.php/t-158695.html

Thats just speculation from forumers back in 2005.



Cleary, this is just ermm speculation :o , aaaanyway, im almost 100% sure you wont need a DX10 card to run UT2007.

[Wormbo]

No, Epic confirmed it will support DX9. Use the friendly search feature or google to look up the corresponding statement.

[Nentuin]

Also would it need a DX10 GFX card to play it?

Yeah they said it'll run both, though DX10 is preferred. I think.

[Cleary]

Yeah they said it'll run both, though DX10 is preferred. I think.
DX10 cards are going to cost Loads!?!, will they be released with Vista?

[MonsOlympus]

Well think of it this way when dx10 cards and vista come out, dx9 cards and xp will be cheaper mwhahahaha ;)

[Cleary]

True! but does DX9 cards run on vista?

[MonsOlympus]

Apparently dx10 can emulate dx9 but its not like the versions of dx we have now where you have mulitple versions and can switch between.

You'll probably need vista to get the most out of dualcore systems though. I should really back this up by saying my pentium d doesnt outperform my p4 in xp.

Infact I know people with pretty powerful amd systems as well and for general multitasking Ive found the p4 to be the most responsive so far. Thats a prescott with ht and not 64bit, I'll probably end up upgrading when I know its worth it lolz :p

[Slainchild]

I'm 99.9% sure it will support multiple core CPU's. :p

[Henrik]

It's all about the applications. many music apps for instance already support dual core in xp. the thing is that most regular everyday programs aren't coded to take advantage of it. Maybe in Vista everything will be able to, but it doesn't mean that you can't get your money's worth from it today, or with UT2007 on an XP equipped PC.

[MonsOlympus]

Im pretty sure this pentium d I got has dualcore and ht but in the task manager it seems to show 2 graphs same as the p4. Both graphs seem to be load handling so it looks more like 1 core with ht than 2 :S

Edit: ahh it doesnt have ht as well whoops :P
http://indigo.intel.com/compare_cpu/showchart.aspx?mmID=884351,868123,861636&familyID=1&culture=en-US

and for future reference hehe
http://indigo.intel.com/compare_cpu/showchart.aspx?mmID=884350,884351,880346,878541,86 5970,873036&familyID=1&culture=en-US

[Scylla]

The answer:


They said it would before...

[Cleary]

Who Cares anyways... we gotta wait another 6 Months ATLEAST, untill the game comes out... and thats if everything goes perfect... witch it wont.

[ClEaRy]

[Scylla]

Actually alot of people care... If this game doesn't use multi core technology, it will fail.

[Cleary]

Actually alot of people care... If this game doesn't use multi core technology, it will fail.
Again who Cares? they got 6 months to programme it to multi core... 6 months!?! half a year+

[MonsOlympus]

Umm yeah, since it seems like every where I look they are getting rid of p4's in place of core duo's even though they are clocked much lower. The fsb speed and cache would help but really cmon a 3.8ghz p4 with ht could out perform any lower clocked dualcore for a single thread couldnt it?? Id say single cores and ht still have some life left especially if they crack the 4.0ghz barrier with them, dont forget thats not even on the faster fsb or small nm process yet. Ok Im still :S help!!! lolz :p

[Oddside]

Umm yeah, since it seems like every where I look they are getting rid of p4's in place of core duo's even though they are clocked much lower. The fsb speed and cache would help but really cmon a 3.8ghz p4 with ht could out perform any lower clocked dualcore for a single thread couldnt it?? Id say single cores and ht still have some life left especially if they crack the 4.0ghz barrier with them, dont forget thats not even on the faster fsb or small nm process yet. Ok Im still :S help!!! lolz :p
Core 2 duo (conroe) CPU's are much better than any P4 in every way. Look at some reviews & you'll see in at least some of them a Core 2 CPU @ 1.86GHz outperforming a P4 D @ 3.6GHz. AMD CPU's are faster than P4's clock for clock & Core 2's are faster than AMD CPU's, so P4's really are nowhere.

Anyway, Unreal Engine 3 is multi-threaded, so why would they not make use of that feature for UT2007?

[MonsOlympus]

Ahh yeah I did check it out, it seems like the memory latency is improved almost 2 fold. Could be another reason ontop of the fsb and cache that its faster.

I dunno, Im going to be waiting a long while before I make the big switch Im not going to do it now while everythings so up in the air. Once all the proggys I use etc are all on dualcore and 64bitness, not to mention having the appropriate os then I'll consider it. By then it'll be looking at oct cores or something silly, does anyone else wonder about the limitations of processors and that perhaps we are looking at other alternatives for speed. All I know is that 65nm is damn small, even if there is less heat generated making things smaller and/or hotter will have its limits one day. Kinda why I figured they are going dualcore in the first place hehe


NetBurst microarchitecture is constrained by physical power / thermal limitations long before the constraint of pipeline stages comes into play. The microarchitecture itself would continue to scale upwards if not for the power constraints. (In fact, we have seen Presler overclocked to 6 GHz in liquid nitrogen environments. At that level, power delivery through the power supply & board itself begin to limit further scaling of the processor.)
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=18

gamin performance
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=14

[Oddside]

...does anyone else wonder about the limitations of processors and that perhaps we are looking at other alternatives for speed. Yup, being interested in that sort of thing.:D
As for alternatives, I suppose it depends on how successful materials like diamond are as a semiconductor. They do have a lot of potential.

[Hanji]

It will run more than one THREAD duh. Multi thread has a lot of meaning, know what I mean? You call it Multi Thread, with procs that can do more than one thing at a time(not really, I/O problem.) Theres Multi Core, Multi Procs, Multi Threaded Procs, Multi core proc on a Multi proc system, etc infinite combo, rofl. Now, I'm lazy to explain the rest, just search on Wikipedia.org for more detailed explaination.

[MonsOlympus]

So I can have a dual processor machine that has dual-core's that can handle multiple threads per core rofl ;)

[Oddside]

It will run more than one THREAD duh. Multi thread has a lot of meaning, know what I mean? You call it Multi Thread, with procs that can do more than one thing at a time(not really, I/O problem.) Theres Multi Core, Multi Procs, Multi Threaded Procs, Multi core proc on a Multi proc system, etc infinite combo, rofl. Now, I'm lazy to explain the rest, just search on Wikipedia.org for more detailed explaination.Your point being what exactly? Since most 'PC' CPU's can only run one thread at a time, multi-threaded implies multiple cores or multiple CPU's. The only exception (apart from P4's) to this I can think of is the CPU in the xbox360, it has 3 cores each capable of running two threads in hardware (but that's a console).


So I can have a dual processor machine that has dual-core's that can handle multiple threads per core rofl ;)Yes.

[MonsOlympus]

hmmz so if I grab 4 processors that are quad-cores and can handle 4 threads each does that mean I get 4x the speed of
dual processor machine that has dual-core's that can handle multiple threads per core or does it mean I only get twice the speed and then ontop of that a single dual-core which can handle only one thread would be 0.25 of the speed. Ok I'll stop lolz, Im just gonna have to wait for the dual/dual-core mobo's with quadsli and ddr3 ram lmao :D

[drak0n]

Actually alot of people care... If this game doesn't use multi core technology, it will fail.
What? How did you come to that conclusion?

[Boksha]

Yeah they said it'll run both, though DX10 is preferred. I think. I'm fairly sure UT2007 will be DX9; running it on a DX10 card will probably just cause it to emulate DX9.
IIRC DX10 will be quite different from DX9, so Epic would have to write a complete extra renderer besides the DX9 and OpenGL one. Not supporting DX9 is not a serious option either, because DX10 is exclusive for Vista.

In other words, don't buy a DX10 card unless that card is also faster at DX9 applications.

[p2xelgen]

I have a pentium4 3.06GHz. If I upgrade to an Intels Core 2 Duo what will the different in the performance be. I no the Duo uses less power and there for = less heat. But the max GHz for the Duo is around 2.5GHz, and my pentium4 runs a 3.06GHz :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Scylla]

Again who Cares? they got 6 months to programme it to multi core... 6 months!?! half a year+

As I said... lots of people do. Just because we have six months doesn't mean that feature would be added. It will be added, however because Epic said that Unreal tournament 2007 will have multi-therading.


What? How did you come to that conclusion?

UT 2007 does not look like a game which will need low requirements... especially with huge maps. Setting up servers would be a nightmare; warfare would be a ***** to run.

[MonsOlympus]

I actually got the impression that its a multi-threaded renderer, which could mean its optimized fully for sli since that indeed could handle 2 threads or something. Dunno if thats right!

Also I thought that the dual-core thing would be mainly for the editor and servers not the client machines since they would be handling alot and palming it off. Dunno if thats right or not either! :S hehe

[ShredPrince]

To answer the question: it has been said there will be two versions: One for 64-bit dual cores, and one for Regular old PC's: like mine

[Moloko]

Your Gfx card selection will become more important than cpu(provided it's reasonable) for Vista/DX10, as the card will really be used to its potential ,for the first time . Games will be coded to use dual cores but not quad core as it would be far to complex for developers. Think of XP as a all round function platform that has gaming functionality and Vista as a true gamers platform, even if MS don't like it expressed like this

[Wowbagger]

To answer the question: it has been said there will be two versions: One for 64-bit dual cores, and one for Regular old PC's: like mine
I would love a link to someone from Epic stating that.

[Oddside]

I have a pentium4 3.06GHz. If I upgrade to an Intels Core 2 Duo what will the different in the performance be. I no the Duo uses less power and there for = less heat. But the max GHz for the Duo is around 2.5GHz, and my pentium4 runs a 3.06GHz :confused: :confused: :confused:A lot, look at the reviews, Core 2 duo is a lot faster than anything else, clock frequency is a poor measure of performance.

[_Lynx]

It was said that UE3 in general will support multicore CPU's at the time, AMD was about to start it's X2 campaign. So UT2007 will benefit from dual core.

[p2xelgen]

A lot, look at the reviews, Core 2 duo is a lot faster than anything else, clock frequency is a poor measure of performance.


Ya thats what I thought. :D

[jbizzler]

» Game Engine Tech Interview: Tim Sweeney

Even though video and PC game developers debate about "visuals vs gameplay" when making their titles, there's no doubt that having games look their best is a big factor in any game's success. FiringSquad will be running occasional interviews with game graphics programmers to get their views on how they use the best of the latest PC hardware along with some predictions for things to come. We are honored to have for our first interview on this subject to be Tim Sweeney, the co-founder of Epic Games and the main programmer for their Unreal game engines, including Unreal Engine 3 which will be first used for their own title Gears of War:
FiringSquad: First, Intel and AMD are pushing dual core processors and in the next year four core processors are due to be released. How will Epic support this kind of tech in Unreal Engine 3 and will there be any need for special programming to fully support multi core CPUs in PCs?

Tim Sweeney: The work we did in optimizing for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 enables Unreal Engine 3 to scale well to multi-core PC CPUs. The latest dual-core CPUs from AMD (Athlon 64 x2) and Intel (Core Duo 2) provide excellent performance for Unreal Engine 3, and the engine will further scale up well to the 4-core CPUs coming later.

FiringSquad: The 64-bit CPU has taken longer to really appear than some people expected. Do you think 64-bit CPUs will become more popular and how will Epic support it in their Unreal engine?

Tim Sweeney: Yes! We first showed the Unreal Engine running on 64-bit at AMD's Athlon 64 launch several years ago. Since 64-bit Windows XP wasn't widely adopted, that delayed the industry-wide move to 64-bit. But it's clear that Windows Vista will mark the transition point where all buyers of new PCs have a stable 64-bit OS "out of the box", finally making the technology mainstream. We'll certainly be supporting it, though the more immediate benefit comes on the tools side -- to game developers and mod teams authoring content -- where your development machine has 2-4X the memory as your expected user configurations. Keep in mind that 64-bit only brings significant benefit when your PC has 4GB or more memory.

FiringSquad: Game physics are getting more and more attention as well with more attention being put into destrucible objects and better collisions. Epic supports the AGEIA hardware processor currently with Unreal Engine 3. What sorts of special features will be used in Uneal Engine 3 while using the AGEIA processor.

Tim Sweeney: Ageia's solution provides a fully-general, hardware-accelerated physics solver, so it's more a question of magnitude than of features -- it enables more than a factor of 10 increase in the number and complexity of interacting physics objects including ragdolls, particles, and so on. With Unreal Engine 3, game developers who target the physics hardware will be able to use that additional performance to add whatever kind of detail they want.

FiringSquad: What about using a graphics processor or one of the multi-CPU cores for hardware physics support? Will Epic also support that kind of feature or do you think AGEIA's way is best?

Tim Sweeney: Ageia's PhysX includes a software physics solution that already scales very well to multi-core CPUs -- both on PC and on console platforms, so physics will be one of the primary beneficiaries of the additional CPU power in 2- and 4-core CPUs.

GPU-accelerated physics is another interesting avenue to explore. NVidia and Havok showed some cool GPU-accelerated physics demos at GDC, but the precision and feature set was fairly limited, fine for things like particles and rubble but falling short of being a general solution. The Direct3D/OpenGL-based GPU programming model is too restrictive to enable the sort of fully general physics solver we're interested in for vehicles, ragdolls, etc, but very interesting things could happen here as GPUs and their software interfaces grow to expose more general computing power.

FiringSquad: HDR lighting is also getting a lot of attention in more PC games. Will the Unreal Engine 3 have that kind of support and how will that help the graphics in games that use it?

Tim Sweeney: Yes, HDR is a huge factor in the look and feel of next-generation games. Unreal Engine 3 uses it pervasively to enable a wider range of scene brightnesses than was possible in the past.

FiringSquad: More and more games are using extensive pixel and vertex shading for visual and art effects. How does the Unreal Engine 3 support these feature currently and how will pixel and vertex shaders be used in the future, particularly with Windows Vista and DirectX10 support?

Tim Sweeney: Previous engines approached shaders as a programmer-oriented feature: a programmer writes some shader code, and then later an artist supplies some textures for it. In Unreal Engine 3, all shader creation takes place in UnrealEd's visual shader creation tool, and is 100% artist-driven, putting complete control over the visual style and appearance of a game in artists' hands. DirectX10 adds more features and performance, rather than fundamentally changing anything.

FiringSquad: Finally, Mark Rein has said that Intel is hurting the PC gaming industry through its use of intergrated graphics in PCs. Is this a real threat and if so what can be done about this from the game developer's side?

Tim Sweeney: The basic premise of integrated graphics is that you can reduce the cost of a new PC by putting a cost-effective GPU on the motherboard, rather than requiring a separate add-in card. This is a sound idea.

The problem with Intel Integrated Graphics is that Intel isn't delivering sufficient performance and features to run DirectX9-focused games decently. Though PC game developers are accustomed to scaling features and performance by a factor of 2-3 to support the range of low- to high-end PCs available, Intel Integrated Graphics is off par by a factor of 5-10 and is thus practically unsupportable.

As a result, the vast majority of next-gen games, which are being designed around DirectX9 and targetted at both PC and next-gen consoles, won't be able to run decently on the majority of low-end PCs which contain Intel Integrated Graphics. Thus a large swath of PC owners are being segregated out of the next-gen PC gaming market, leaving only the high-end PC gamers, and that's not clearly a large enough audience to support PC gaming as an industry.

Ultimately, this just moves the gaming audience away from PCs, to consoles. Watching this unfold feels tragic, because Intel has been very successful in supplying the whole market -- including even the lowest-priced segments -- with excellent, high-performance CPUs. But, without decent DirectX9 graphics capabilities, these PCs will never be adequate for gaming.

Source: FiringSquad (http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=11906)

I know all there is to know about Vista, DX10, and such, that there is for the public to know. Ask me anything. I'm using Vista RC1 64-bit on a Core 2 Duo with PhysX right now.

[Phopojijo]

I know all there is to know about Vista, DX10, and such, that there is for the public to know. Ask me anything. I'm using Vista RC1 64-bit on a Core 2 Duo with PhysX right now.Read the public D3D10 SDK documentation yet? There's a lot of useful stuff in there too.

[Henrik]

From that interview I take it they see the problem with integrated graphics as a pretty good argument for making UT cross-platform compatible. The player numbers would be closer to what they would hope to see.

[jbizzler]

Read the public D3D10 SDK documentation yet? There's a lot of useful stuff in there too.
Yeah. If anyone's intrested it seeing it, download the current SDK for yourself. I kind of know the specific features of DX10, but not enough to have a lengthy conversation. What I really know is compatibility, upcoming DX10 cards and such. Lemme summarize.

DirectX 10 requires two things. Windows Vista and a DirectX 10 graphics card. Currently none exist, but they will start showing up soon. nVIDIA is expected to release the GeForce 8 Series soon. Goto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series and read about it for youself. ATi will show their R600 soon after. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R600. These cards will function in Windows XP, but will have limited features. They will still be more powerful than current cards though.

UT2007 will not require DX10, but will support it. It will use DirectX 10 if the two requirements are met. Otherwise, it will only use DirectX 9.

If you have a dual core or hyper-threaded CPU, it will be able to utilize both cores. It will even be optimized for 4 cores down the road.

64-bit features require a 64-bit processor and a 64-bit OS. Currently, Windows XP x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64 are your only x64 Windows solution. But Vista will have several x64 versions.

UT2007 PhysX has lots of rumors. I want to end them. PhysX really has two meanings. One is the software API, and the other is the actual hardware. UT2004 will use the software PhysX all the time for all physics processes. But if you have PhysX hardware, then it will use the PhysX hardware for special effects only!. Thinsg such as cloth, fluid, fire. Anything that does not effect gameplay. Visual things.

[MonsOlympus]

umm so I take it you can emulate dx10 using software like you could in the dx9 sdk, far from worth it unless you got a total beast. Im guessin the dualcores would help this especially in vista.

[placebo]

Will UT2k7 take advantage of the quad-core beast on my desk right now?

[Phopojijo]

UT2007 PhysX has lots of rumors. I want to end them. PhysX really has two meanings. One is the software API, and the other is the actual hardware. UT2004 will use the software PhysX all the time for all physics processes. But if you have PhysX hardware, then it will use the PhysX hardware for special effects only!. Thinsg such as cloth, fluid, fire. Anything that does not effect gameplay. Visual things.Should emphesize something you said, it will be USED for Special Effects only... if a modder wants to create insanely high requirements for physics in his mod, there shouldn't be anything stopping him... except for the limiting of his own fanbase.

[Gregori]

Will UT2k7 take advantage of the quad-core beast on my desk right now?


No. Just like this forum, they found the multi-threading to be a complete nightmare!:)


Seriously though, no one knows ANYTHING about the requirements until Epic says it!

[jbizzler]

Sweeney says they will support 4 cores down the road. That's not saying the game won't work, it just won't take full advantage of it, similar to how games not optimized for 2 cores still work but not as well.

I can emulate DX10, but I get 5FPS on the "Intro to DX1" tutorials.

[jbizzler]

Should emphesize something you said, it will be USED for Special Effects only... if a modder wants to create insanely high requirements for physics in his mod, there shouldn't be anything stopping him... except for the limiting of his own fanbase.

Yeah. UT2007 itself will only use PhysX hardware for effects, but the engine is fully capable otherwise.

[Phopojijo]

Sweeney says they will support 4 cores down the road. That's not saying the game won't work, it just won't take full advantage of it, similar to how games not optimized for 2 cores still work but not as well.

I can emulate DX10, but I get 5FPS on the "Intro to DX1" tutorials.Nah, he said its scalable to 4 cores natively, but isn't in use yet because there's no quad-threaded device (minus the 360 and PS3, which have their own little optimizations methinks)

Most software is scalable to up to 32 or beyond cores... you just don't *use* them :p

Also code-wise, apart from PS4.0 -- DX10 looks exactly like DX9 code (pretty much). The difference is in AFTER you compile it. Microsoft's good for that -- change a lot behind the scenes, yet keeps the up-front details almost identicle. "Developers First".

[Chiln_Viln]

I have a pentium4 3.06GHz. If I upgrade to an Intels Core 2 Duo what will the different in the performance be. I no the Duo uses less power and there for = less heat. But the max GHz for the Duo is around 2.5GHz, and my pentium4 runs a 3.06GHz :confused: :confused: :confused:

The Mhz/Ghz scale is a bad method of measurement for CPU performance of
different specific core type design. The thing that makes the newer CPU's
better than the older ones is the amount of instructions they can handle per
clock cycle and the reduced latency of the internel cache.
Heat causes latency, high Ghz and voltages cause heat.

Larger scoops of data per tick and lower heat and latency= faster chip

[jbizzler]

Yeah, that confuses lost of people. I used to have a 4GHz Pentium D, now I have a Core 2 Duo E6300 at 2.6GHz and it's way faster. Only use the GHz/MHz to compare it to other chips int eh same line.

[p2xelgen]

Ya so Intels Core 2 Duo is king against any Pentium4, but is it :confused: :confused: 64bit :confused: :confused: .

[The5thviruz]

Yes, conroe (core 2 duo) is 64 bit.

[p2xelgen]

Yes, conroe (core 2 duo) is 64 bit.


Cool wants the going rate for one of those gems, goggle it and the prices are on the high side.

[The5thviruz]

Cool wants the going rate for one of those gems, goggle it and the prices are on the high side.

They start at about £100 at overclockers.co.uk.

I haven't compared prices from other places though, so that site might be more expensive.

[MonsOlympus]

Its probably the new mobo that'll hit your pockets deeper :\

I think though that you can get a conroe mobo and put older chips in them, not entirely sure on that but judging by the specs on the intel site it seems like you can.

[The5thviruz]

Id say single cores and ht still have some life left especially if they crack the 4.0ghz barrier with them, dont forget thats not even on the faster fsb or small nm process yet.

Just thought I'd mention that the Core 2 Duo has been taken to 4 GHz on air cooling alone. Last time I looked, with liquid cooling, it got to 5.5 GHz.

[p2xelgen]

Just thought I'd mention that the Core 2 Duo has been taken to 4 GHz on air cooling alone. Last time I looked, with liquid cooling, it got to 5.5 GHz.
Ant really any point overcooking CPU, nextgen games mainly use the GPU of the graphics card. Ya I'm sure its gona help having a high clocked CPU, but above 2GHz there ant really any need :confused:

[The5thviruz]

Ant really any point overcooking CPU, nextgen games mainly use the GPU of the graphics card. Ya I'm sure its gona help having a high clocked CPU, but above 2GHz there ant really any need :confused:

Computers aren't just used for gaming.

[jbizzler]

I must say, 2.6GHz on my E6300 is much better than 2.0GHz, for everything. Now, I agree that MAY change with how DX10 is designed, but for now it's sweet.

Yes, Core 2 Duo motherboards do still support older Pentium 4s, Pentium Ds, and Pentium EEs. When I bought my P5B Deluxe, I didn't have enough money for the CPU itself, and my Pentium D worked in it just fine.

64-bit really doesn't help in gaming much... yet. As textures get bigger and bigger, RAM will become more and more important. 64-bit allows more RAM. When it comes to games though, that's about it.

Edit: I'd like to add the E6300 is an amazing overclocker. I'm sure I could go beyond 2.6GHz easily, but all my games already run at a steady 60fps with Vsync on.

[Phopojijo]

Ant really any point overcooking CPU, nextgen games mainly use the GPU of the graphics card. Ya I'm sure its gona help having a high clocked CPU, but above 2GHz there ant really any need :confused:
No, there really isn't any point in O/Cing a new processor except to post the highest benches.

Amount of possible overclocking IS important if you want to hold off upgrading your CPU when your system *actually becomes* CPU-bound in a few years. It'd be nice to pop up to 3.2 GHz from 2.4 when GeForce 9 comes around and actually gets USED to its potential. Right now I'm just casting processes away, so for now, why up-clock?

[MonsOlympus]

It does make you wonder as well if Ghz/Mhz doesnt matter then whats the point of o'clockin anyways. I mean you cant add extra cache to make it 4mb x2 or anything, you can do the fsb but woah careful hehe

So umm a conroe doesnt require a chunky psu then? I dont have a huge one atm myself like 350-400 but it runs like 5hdd and the rest just fine :S and thats on the power hungry prescott :\

I wonder how much difference DDR3 will make over dualcore, since the fsb is quicker and memory latency is reduced then you should be able to get alot more out of DDR2 as well as 3. I think thats where the real speed is instead of the actual processing, well unless your rendering in like max but even then ram has a big effect as well as less paging equals quicker render. Not to mention SATA and SATA2 atm I run just SATA1 but damn I was really impressed with the difference in access speeds especially when deleting large amounts of files and moving/copying alot of small ones.

I think the good thing with dualcore is they can split the cores apart so the heat gets spread better, I find with my current mobo the north bridge gets hottest but its close to the cpu so on occasion the cpu fan will spin up but it aint because the cpu is hot its because of the heat from the northbridge hitting the cpu heatsink.

This is a pretty interesting thread too guys, keep it up ;) :D

[Phopojijo]

It does make you wonder as well if Ghz/Mhz doesnt matter then whats the point of o'clockin anyways. I mean you cant add extra cache to make it 4mb x2 or anything, you can do the fsb but woah careful hehe

So umm a conroe doesnt require a chunky psu then? I dont have a huge one atm myself like 350-400 but it runs like 5hdd and the rest just fine :S and thats on the power hungry prescott :\

I wonder how much difference DDR3 will make over dualcore, since the fsb is quicker and memory latency is reduced then you should be able to get alot more out of DDR2 as well as 3. I think thats where the real speed is instead of the actual processing, well unless your rendering in like max but even then ram has a big effect as well as less paging equals quicker render. Not to mention SATA and SATA2 atm I run just SATA1 but damn I was really impressed with the difference in access speeds especially when deleting large amounts of files and moving/copying alot of small ones.

I think the good thing with dualcore is they can split the cores apart so the heat gets spread better, I find with my current mobo the north bridge gets hottest but its close to the cpu so on occasion the cpu fan will spin up but it aint because the cpu is hot its because of the heat from the northbridge hitting the cpu heatsink.

This is a pretty interesting thread too guys, keep it up ;) :DPlease elaborate further, kind-of lost you there.

GHz does matter, the problem is GHz isn't the ONLY thing which matters. You can overclock a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 to 4.0 GHz and notice a marked improvement in performance; however, a Core 2 Duo speedstepped to ~1.4 GHz will still blow the hell out of it.

[MonsOlympus]

Yeah ofcoarse but dualcore aint gonna do much for ya if youve got sdram and an ide33 hdd no matter how fast it is. I find benchmark systems always put the best components in right then run the tests, fair enough, but umm you cant compare a single core to a dual core because a dual core will always run software made for it quicker. Thats not saying single cores are quicker either, its just hard to compare two different tech's directly.

Newer seems to be better but you always have to wait for the software to catch up so perhaps dualcores are even more faster. I guess if your using vista and all the stuffz then its all cool. The main reason Im sticking with this machine for now is that its my dx9 winxp one, I'll buy a dx10 vista one when I know the software is worth the upgrade.

But yeah I was kinda asking about the conroe's apparently they use less power which is why the arnt as hot, I know people who buy like some 750watt monster or something for a dvd and 1hdd :S Clean power can have a huge affect on how your processor performs, I remember reading an article on it and was really surprised which is why I chose an antec neo psu.

[Phopojijo]

I use Maya 8 -- I'm already caught up to 64-bit and dualcore for MY purposes :p

[{SM}LeadSniper]

man i wish i knew what your all talking about. anyone got a link to upgrading for dummies for me?

[p2xelgen]

Phopojijo
Your system looks A1
Conroe 2.4GHz 4MB Cache, 2GB 4-5-4 DDR2-800 Dualchannel, GeForce 7900 GT
LG 20.1" HDCP-compliant TFT-LCD, Logitech G15, X-Fi Platinum
SATA Raptor 74GB, PATA 250GB Caviar, Asus P5W DH

So how much did that cost you :o

[Hanji]

I think you people are making a mistake on the Core 2 Duo core names thing, the E6300 and E6400 has the "Allendale" core, and the E6600 and above uses the real Conroe, but the Conroe cannot reach higher clock speeds than the Allendale, you can see why by testing a E6300 against a E6600, the E6300 has a CPU multiplier of 7x (7 times) and the E6600 has 10x (10 times), the E6300 out performs in both clock number/speed, AND performance, go search for the review somewhere yourself, I'm lazy to link you to the proof.

[Oddside]

I think you people are making a mistake on the Core 2 Duo core names thing, the E6300 and E6400 has the "Allendale" core, and the E6600 and above uses the real Conroe... No one has yet incorrectly called an 'Allendale' core CPU conroe & vice versa.


...but the Conroe cannot reach higher clock speeds than the Allendale, you can see why by testing a E6300 against a E6600, the E6300 has a CPU multiplier of 7x (7 times) and the E6600 has 10x (10 times), the E6300 out performs in both clock number/speed, AND performance, go search for the review somewhere yourself, I'm lazy to link you to the proof. Again, what's your point? The E6300 & E6400 only out perform 'conroe' when clocked about 5% higher than conroe. The multiplier has little to do with this overclocking ability, it's mainly due to the reduced L2 cache on the E6300 & E6400, having only 2MB as opposed to conroe's 4MB. If anything, the lower multiplier makes a higher-than-conroe clock frequency more difficult to attain, due to the required FSB frequency being that much higher.

[{SM}LeadSniper]

i have a liquid cooling system for my comp and i know how to overclock. but what processor do you think would be better suited for ut2007? my friend is a comp expert but seeing how he's living on campus and i don't see him that much... what processor should i invest in?

[Oddside]

i have a liquid cooling system for my comp and i know how to overclock. but what processor do you think would be better suited for ut2007? my friend is a comp expert but seeing how he's living on campus and i don't see him that much... what processor should i invest in?
At the moment my answer is 'Core 2 Duo.' Although which exact model I'm not sure.

[{SM}LeadSniper]

im pretty sure i have a core duo, i need to check the box when i get back home (currently in stat lecture in college lol)

[jbizzler]

P5B Deluxe $200
Core 2 Duo E6300 (Allendale) @ 2.6GHz (370MHz x 7) $180
Twin2X2048-6400 $200 (I bought it a while back before DDR2 prices skyrocketed)
X1900XT $350 (Price of em before X1950XTX)
Case/PSU/CDroms, etc $300

~$1300 for it all, and it kicks ass.

[MonsOlympus]

Arnt the conroes even looking at a higher fsb now, like a 1333 over 1066 or something. So with a lesser mulitplier you can ahieve a high clock speed. I have seemed to notice though with higher fsb's the northbridge gets pretty hot. Dunno if theres anything in that or not.

I would also suggest investing in a decent powersupply if your looking at getting a brand spanker pc. Although they might be alittle pricy it can increase the lifespan of all your components and it'll run more stable, not that cheaper psu's wont do the trick but with a newer cpu you'd probably want it to last longer.

Does anyone know when DRR3 mobo's are gonna be about? I see some graphics chips are starting to go to GDDR4 so it should be soon Im guessing. I find mobo's kinda follow gpu's one step behind when it comes to ram.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3

[Moloko]

DDR3 M/b Q3 07 and DDR4 DX10 cards with 1 gig memory producing bandwidth of 160GB/s with 256-bit memory bus in the form of the R680 and G85, and it is said the 512-bit memory bus isn't far away, not to mention the quad cores, kinda makes you wonder just how good a game can look when these represent the minimum specs to run it... then it is on to GDDR5. Looks like the big game development houses will need to merge if they're ever to release anything.

[MonsOlympus]

Well hmmz, Im definatly know what Im saving for then :D

Even if games companies dont use the highest specs with all this stuff it'll definatly be good for older titles you couldnt run decently at the time. I still cant play fear very well on my pc, I think its mainly the single 6600 thats the problem. Ive seen the 7950gx2's need a minimum chipset so Im outta luck there for sli types, I'll probably end up going a 7600gt or something.

By the looks though these quad-cores with ddr3 and a dx10 card would be way faster than a console, well not sure about the ps3's. Your right about dev companies but I think we've got to a point with graphics that a small improvement on graphics wont out weigh gameplay. Even if there are big improvements it makes you wonder if its worth the time and money to make every title on par graphically. We'll see how it pans out anyway if games start rivalling movies in terms of cg then we know its truly a golden age for gaming :D

[{SM}LeadSniper]

game with ff:spirits within cg animation=heaven lol.
well graphics alone do not make a game.

[ProjectUT]

I hope the new Core 2 processors will be kick ass, becuase myself and a friend have tested that it's our poor little cpu that can't keep up with today's gaming needs.

I pushed my AMD64 2.2Ghz to 2.6Ghz and scored at least 15% better rating on 3dmark06, graphics was about the same, but the cpu score improved. I'm ready to upgrade to duo soon, if AMD don't bring something better out.

I think Ut2007 will be like all the rest, have a minimum spec which will be welll below the norm, I hope.

[p2xelgen]

game with ff:spirits within cg animation=heaven lol.
well graphics alone do not make a game.

Game: with Final FantasyVII Advent Children, grathics= Gaming-Heaven ;)

[Scylla]

well graphics alone do not make a game.

But they sure as hell help.

[CounterZeus]

I just pray my future laptop will be able to run UT2k7
and of course my Pent D 830 with 1GB DDR2 RAM and a GeForce 6700XL :)

[Oddside]

I just pray my future laptop will be able to run UT2k7
and of course my Pent D 830 with 1GB DDR2 RAM and a GeForce 6700XL :)Hmm, I've never heard of a '6700XL' before, but after a bit of searching I've found that it's a factory overclocked 6600GT, so it'll run it, just not on high settings (probably not medium either :().

[MonsOlympus]

umm perhaps

Intel Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo Ready
Quad-core CPU Ready
DDR2 800/667/533
FSB 1066/800/533
Quad PCI-E x 16 slots
http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=248&model=1341&modelmenu=1 :D
Or http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=248&model=1289&modelmenu=1

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/975x/index.htm :p

[jbizzler]

I see no need for the 4 PCIe x16s, but the P5WDG2-WS Pro is probablyt he best you can get without a budget. Right now, this si the best config ont eh market for games:

P5WDG2-WS Pro
Core 2 Extreme X6800
2x TWIN2X2048-8888C4DF (4 DIMMS total) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145044
X1950XTX+CF
X-Fi Elite Pro
Bigfoot Networks Killer NIC (Way too powerful network AIC) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833342001
ASUS P1 PhysX

That's what I'd have if I had no budget.

[unknown_lord]

umm perhaps

http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=248&model=1341&modelmenu=1 :D
Or http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=248&model=1289&modelmenu=1

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/975x/index.htm :p


I just now realized that 16 pci slots is little to much for an average pc

[Hanji]

The 975X chipset runs on an older Memory controller, the 965 series has the new memory controller, its speed can almost reach the 975X's speeds, but check out the price, like 50-100 bucks USD$ differents. Blah blah blah, anyway, the 975X won't support Core 2 Quadro when the MAINSTREAM ones to release Q1 2007, the expensive Core 2 Quadro X6700 will release this November.

[Oddside]

Blah blah blah, anyway, the 975X won't support Core 2 Quadro when the MAINSTREAM ones to release Q1 2007...Why not? If it supports a top end Core 2 quadro why would it not support the 'mainstream' versions, which are probably just going to run at lower frequencies & have less L2 cache?


I see no need for the 4 PCIe x16s, but the P5WDG2-WS Pro is probablyt he best you can get without a budget. Right now, this si the best config ont eh market for games:
...I wonder how much faster a system of the same price will be this time next year.

[Sharpfish]

I wonder how much faster a system of the same price will be this time next year.

about 4 times faster than a system that cost double the price last year! ;)

I am looking at picking up a nice core2Duo E6600 (overclocked to 3ghz) which should be fine. Would love a quad but they are going to be pricey when they drop, I also here that some stuff is going to have trouble working with them out of the box (because some software is only good for upto two cores).

We'll see!

[MonsOlympus]

Ok so is this what we can expect from quadcore?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OF9qoWKNbA&mode=related&search=

[jbizzler]

I just now realized that 16 pci slots is little to much for an average pc

the x16 means speed. It doesn't mean there's 16 of them. It's one slot with 16 PCIe lanes.


Ok so is this what we can expect from quadcore?

Yes, but I don't know if UT2007 will be optimized for Quad-Core out of the box. If it isn't, I imagine they'd patch it fairly soon after. Apps that aren't optimized for Quad-Core will run as well as their dual-core counter part. ie. the Q6600 would perform like the E6600 if UT2007 isn't optimized for Quad-Core.

[MonsOlympus]

Yeah I looked on the alan wake site and it says vista/360 exclusive, Im guessin that means we'll start seeing more of this later when UE3 moves towards dx10. I mean UE3 looks awsome as it is so I cant imagine how impressive its going to be later on. On the unreal wiki it says something about UE3.5 using dx11 and dx12 but Im not sure if that'll be right or not, it just seems that if UE3 is at 3.0 now then we can expect quad-core and dx10 from 3.5 I reckon. Mind you there has been talk of UE now working on mulitple cores with both 360 and ps3, maybe thats just an insight though.

Im really just waiting to see if there is more to come like six cores or oct cores, whatever, because if they are going to be making ultra beasts that can run way faster than current systems in like 2 years time then maybe its worth the wait. Then I can just boot up my 360 and ps3 emulators and play any game I want that was made from now till then hehe

I can really only see things getting cheaper, I was really surprised at the cost vs performance of core 2 duo as amd had set a pretty low mark for prices already. Its good to see the cpu makers fighting it out decently, Id only hope that things are looking this good for gpu makers as well. Quad sli might be pretty promising but I wonder about the future of multi-core gpu's the 7950gx2's are something like that and I think asus has one with 2 7800gtx's on it as well.

Its definatly going to be great to see all this stuff come to bloom over the next few years, I just hope it does lead us into a golden age for gaming while bringing back some of the nostalga the industry seems to have lost. Imagine what an arcade machine could do if these are desktop/workstation specs, consoles are definatly looking strong but the Id like to see the industry be alittle less split over online gaming. I guess no matter how far the technology goes it'll always be limited by us humans lmao ;)

[Gearbox]

10 pages later........

YES

[jbizzler]

10 pages later........

YES
Yes.


I wonder how much faster a system of the same price will be this time next year.
Next year's ultimate system:

Bearlake-X Chipset Motherboard With Dual PCIe2 x16 and SATA3
45nm Native Quad Core Intel Processor
4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM
Dual G90s or R700s or Intel's Upcoming Enthusiest GPUs

Super drool awsome right now, but by that time we'll have somethign new to marvel at...
Some law states that processor speeds double every 16 months. That doesn't translate directly to performance, but you get the idea.

[Oddside]

Some law states that processor speeds double every 16 months...I don't mean to be pedantic but it's 'Moores Law' & it states that transistor density (number of transistors per unit area) will double every 18 - 24 months (depends where you look). But like you say, it doesn't directly relate to performance.

[Artmic]

One question i have, are the character models and outdoor things in UT2007 drawn as complex as the Gears of War game on the xbox360? or are we reduced to nice looking texturers and effects, but with low low polygon models :( I HATE THAT about pc games, the stupid arse low polygon counts in games, everything looks like a freaking lego block.