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[Svankensen]

The title says all. Im buying a new laptop tomorrow, and i ned to know if it will help DF. Since its mostly a work laptop i might not get the card otherwise.

[Telgin]

Not really.  I believe the current version will use 3D accelerated hardware to do the graphics, but even the most basic card will do that fast enough that it won't be the bottleneck.  By far it's the CPU and memory that matter.  Graphics cards shouldn't factor into your decision on a DF playing computer at all.

[Duuvian]

The size of processor will matter the most. For example, a dual core 3.5 ghz processor would probably be better than a quad core 2.5 ghz.

I THINK. I've done no testing, but from my limited and possibly outdated knowledge of how DF works this would be the case.

[Cruxador]

If you have a suitably advanced card (DX10 compatible, I think?) it'll handle graphics there instead of on the CPU. But, as people have said, the difference it makes is pretty small.

The size of processor will matter the most. For example, a dual core 3.5 ghz processor would probably be better than a quad core 2.5 ghz.

The speed of a single core will matter the most. Frequency isn't necessarily indicative of speed though.

[Svankensen]

ĄThanks guys! Going to buy that Laptop =D

[miauw62]

Yeah, DF isn't multithreaded, so it'll only use one core. That said, if you buy a quad core you could dump DF on one core and have everything else run on the rest.

[Putnam]

Getting a dual-core over a quad-core for DF is terrible advice, absolutely terrible. You won't find a dual-core these days with better single-core processing power than any quad-core anyway.

[Tsuchigumo550]

I've always wanted to build something absolutely ridiculous- what's the maximum number of cores you could potentially shove together?

DF will mostly benefit from it's own core, and if it's mostly a work/buisness laptop you shouldn't see any problem from assigning it one.

[PigtailLlama]

I've always wanted to build something absolutely ridiculous- what's the maximum number of cores you could potentially shove together?

I know of some boards that allow for 2 CPU slots that are meant for servers, and there are CPUs that have 16 cores (also meant for servers). However given socket sizes I'd doubt you could do 32 cores, but 16 might be possible.

[mek42]

I've always wanted to build something absolutely ridiculous- what's the maximum number of cores you could potentially shove together?

DF will mostly benefit from it's own core, and if it's mostly a work/buisness laptop you shouldn't see any problem from assigning it one.

Mostly because I have a pile of 2 Gb ECC Reg DDR (1) laying around, I'm thinking to get an old v40z quad (dual-core) cpu server for a posix box after my old house sells and I have disposable income again.  That is only 8, but very old tech - for servers, quad cpu boards are common, and as someone else did say, oct cpu boards are also made.

Intel just released a 10 core Zeon: http://www.dailytech.com/Intel+Airs+10Core+Xeon+Server+Chips+at+Insanely+High+Prices/article21311.htm

And here is a server with 4 of these chips for a mere 40 cores that costs only a bit more than twice what my first (and to date only) new car cost: http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CKz6tMfe4LsCFYlaMgodjmEAwg&Item=9B-59-107-471&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleBiz-_-pla-_-Server+%26+Workstation+Systems-_-9B-59-107-471&ef_id=mUtNQgVpAgAAAFU:20140103002248:s

But really, 40 cores?  Meh.  Here is the real deal, 80 cores but only a measly 1 Tb RAM and only 4 Tesla GPU slots.  Probably not good enough for a decent DF game.  http://www.tomshardware.com/news/supermicro-server-intel-westmere-xeon,12308.html