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Author Topic: Cpu upgrade  (Read 951 times)

cakeonslaught

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Cpu upgrade
« on: June 06, 2010, 04:34:36 pm »
Will upgrading from my 2.5 Ghz, dual-core CPU to a 2.5 Ghz Quad-core have any effect on my DF frame rate? I'm assuming when they say 2.5Ghz that it applies to each core, so that's twice the power right? Can DF make use of more than one CPU? I'm noticing on my current processor it's only taking up about 50%.
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Diablous

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2010, 04:35:58 pm »
DF can only use one core.
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cakeonslaught

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2010, 04:38:43 pm »
Thought so...
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Muz

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2010, 05:18:05 pm »
It's not twice the power. It's less, thanks to overhead from multiple CPUs. I think the system Windows uses means that multiple CPUs would be fighting for attention.. quality of it is actually much slower than a single core 2.5 Ghz because you're not utilizing the computing power.

I have an exam on this stuff in 2 weeks :P
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Total_Meltdown

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2010, 05:49:20 pm »
Quote from: Muz on June 06, 2010, 05:18:05 pm
I have an exam on this stuff in 2 weeks :P

Study more.
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Blacken

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2010, 05:50:24 pm »
Quote from: Muz on June 06, 2010, 05:18:05 pm
It's not twice the power. It's less, thanks to overhead from multiple CPUs. I think the system Windows uses means that multiple CPUs would be fighting for attention.. quality of it is actually much slower than a single core 2.5 Ghz because you're not utilizing the computing power.

I have an exam on this stuff in 2 weeks :P
This isn't at all true. The "overhead" from multiple SMP cores is incredibly, incredibly marginal. If you're talking about core contention--not a significant issue in modern OSes with modern schedulers--you can provide hinting via affines if you're that worried about it. Yes, you're more likely to have unused cycles, but as the number of processes increase, the efficiency approaches 2X where X was the equivalently clocked single-core processor's processing capability.

I'll have to admit that I don't have an exam on the topic, but I do have an idea of how computers actually work.
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ein

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2010, 06:17:28 pm »
I'd say stick with your dual-core and make it so that one core is dedicated to DF and the other core does everything else.
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Diablous

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2010, 06:19:37 pm »
Quote from: ein on June 06, 2010, 06:17:28 pm
I'd say stick with your dual-core and make it so that one core is dedicated to DF and the other core does everything else.

I just remembered hearing that the d## stuff just added to the new version causes the rendering to have it's own thread, so it can go on another core. Just that though.
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qwertyuiopas

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Re: Cpu upgrade
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2010, 09:20:45 pm »
Last time I checked, DF had a few threads, maybe about 10? Unfortunately, one of those is The Big Thread that proably takes 95% of the processing.
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