DUAL CORE PROCESSORS?

[UK_RON]

I have just been subjected to the most ridiculous advert ever from PC World in the UK concerning PC's with Dual Core processors which:

"Enable you to do more than one thing at a time"

Forgive my pessimissm but don't ALL computers running Windows do that anyway? After all that was the reason for MSWindows being sold in the first place wasn't it.

SO. Anyone care to explain just what a "Dual Core Processor" actually does and what advantages it has over any other CPU other than, maybe, speed which would be easier and cheaper obtained just by purchasing a faster CPU rather than extremely expensive Dual Core Processors?

I just cannot believe the methods being used to advertise what is basically rubbish at very high prices by using BS to flog the C**P instead of understanding the reality that most of us are just not that stupid, or are we?



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[Aarinu]

Windows was designed to Multitask, correct, but a processor is still only able to do one task at a time. Dual core processors are able to perform 2 tasks at once. While Windows may make it appear that your computer can do more than one thing, this is truely not the case. Windows controls who, or what program will get the processor first. All this, of course, is happening in the background, so to the user, it would appear that 2 things (or more) are happening at once. Processors, until recently, have been unable to perform more than one task. Think of Dual core as having 2 processors in your computer (although due to bus width and other factors, it will never perform up to a true dual processor system.

[angels355]

Hi Ron, how are you doing?

This is something I actually know about...uh, um,...just kidding you, actually I know something about this. I think that advertisement was stupid also, I remember five years ago I was at the library on their crummy computers, which at that time I think they only had 350 mhz computers maybe. Any way, I was massively multitasking, with around 10 or more open windows reading physics journals (I know how to have a good time!). So I completely see your point about how stupid that advertisement is.

Now we have dual cores, and next year about 6 or 07/2007 they are going to have quad core processors, and in a few years it might be up to 6 or 8 cores, I read one article where for servers they are experimenting with 32 core processors for a target date of around 2010. Apple Computer used to have a slogan that was something like two processors are better ta da ta da ta da, perhaps I'm not expressing that with the same zing they did; but Apple was trying to maintain an image of having very powerful computers for graphic and cinema arts people. But they had a good point, when big processors start to slow down in progress, to continue rapidly ramping up the processing power of the computer, then you have to turn to multiprocessors to continue advancing fast. The problem with the development of single core processors is that to continue advancing processor power, you have to continue further and further to shrink the circuitry of the processor. No problem right? Wrong, although right now circuitry continues to shrink farther and farther, the problem is that these circuit sizes are becoming so extremely small that guess what, they are approaching a physics limit. If you make these circuits small enough to reach this limit, you start failing in standard electronic function, and you start getting standard electronic function errors due to physics QUANTUM MECHANICAL EFFECTS! I know it sounds like a bunch of unmitigated rubbisherie, but that is really the problem. So in order to overcome this problem, with this physics limit, and also to greatly increase the power of the computer at a lower cost, what Intel and AMD have done is to take the processor cores of two processors and join them together into one chip, so you actually have two old faschioned processors bound together to form a "dual core". This is a very good thing.

Now software needs to catch up to this technology, and also 64 bit technology. FS9 is a little antiquated in that regard, I believe that it sticks to 32 bit processing technology, and also only allows itself to be processed through only one single processor or core. So apparently if you had a dual core 64 bit processor, it would still run as a 32 bit program, and only through one processor. Hopefully, and I'm sure this is the case, FSX will overcome these problems by being able to run to full advantage on a 64 bit system, and I'm hoping that they got the multiprocessor thing going too, where FSX will also be fully processed using both cores in a dual core system, or next year fully processed by all four processors in a quad core computer; plus they say that it's going to send more graphics work to the video card so that the processing is not so dependent on the processor. A pretty computer technician a couple of days ago told me that they now have quad core graphics cards, however they are pricey like $1,000!

So to answer your question, a dual core processor is twice as powerful as a single core, it is much much better, and future processors are not only going to be better with quad cores and later 8 cores etc, but also there is still room for them to shrink the circuitry further so processors will improve with number of cores and still shrinking circuitry. Going back to my experience multitasking at the library on a 350 mhz computer w/ 10 or more open windows, if you had a dual core computer, plus a very large plasma tv hooked up to your computer, conceivably you can have an incredible number of windows open and running in ordinary applications, but FS9 would take the full processing capability of one core, because of the video card bottleneck you might still only be able to run one FS9 at a time.

I increase my multitasking with more low cost computers, which has been very useful. Now I have four simulator installations, but can only fly 3 at a time (fun!), Fly!2k, FS98, FS2000, FS9, I got another computer which I'm still tinkering on, it needs a faster processor around 1 ghz or slightly more (for an old board this P2B Asus mobo is very flexible) which can run another installation of FS9 (now have two FS9 licensed copies), and maybe Fly!2. I have another couple of boards for more projects also. That's fun to me. Not to mention that I am no longer dependent on library computers, and their pain in the neck time limits, and REALLY CRANKY LIBRARIANS! Of course there were some very nice ones also, but with my own systems I am really having a good time!

I'm looking forward to Vista also.


Here is a screenshot from my 700 mhz computer:

[loki]

Speed has never been an accurate measure of processor performance. Intel just wanted everyone to believe that as that is about all they had with their Pentium 4 designs. AMD's Athlon 64 chips running at 2.6GHz could easily crush the fastest Pentium 4 running at ~3.8GHz in almost every benchmark you threw at them.

The problem AMD and Intel were facing is that you aren't going to get cheaper and faster single core processors anymore. Intel had planned on a 4GHz Pentium some time ago, but was forced to cancel that idea due to extreme heat issues. Many people joked about using P4 based computers as space heaters because they generated so much heat. AMD was also having trouble increasing their designs to higher speeds.

The solution? Put two processor cores into one chip. Depending on the application, you can get anywhere from no improvement to very significant increases in speed. Programs that are properly written will see almost double the performance. Want to encode and burn a DVD while playing a game? No problem if you have the RAM. Not all programs will be re-written for dual core/processor chips though as they wouldn't benefit directly, but with two cores, each core can run two different apps without any loss in performance (at least as far as most people are concerned). Another example is letting your anti-virus app scan your computer more often while you work in MS Office or play a game. It will take a little while for applications to take full advantage of multiple cores as it is not easy to develop properly multi-threaded apps. Quake 4 has already been patched to use more than one core, and other games will follow. Both nVidia and ATI have released graphics drivers that use dual cores as well if you have one.

FSX sounds like it will better use dual cores, but I haven't seen anything showing how much better. It isn't as easy as just recompiling the program to use multiple threads though.

Basically, multi-core CPUs are the future. I like mine. ;)

loki

[Aarinu]

>>Now software needs to catch up to this technology, and also 64 bit technology. FS9 is a little antiquated in that regard, I believe that it sticks to 32 bit processing technology, and also only allows itself to be processed through only one single processor or core. So apparently if you had a dual core 64 bit processor, it would still run as a 32 bit program, and only through one processor. Hopefully, and I'm sure this is the case, FSX will overcome these problems by being able to run to full advantage on a 64 bit system, and I'm hoping that they got the multiprocessor thing going too, where FSX will also be fully processed using both cores in a dual core system, or next year fully processed by all four processors in a quad core computer; plus they say that it's going to send more graphics work to the video card so that the processing is not so dependent on the processor. A pretty computer technician a couple of days ago told me that they now have quad core graphics cards, however they are pricey like $1,000!<<

FS9 came out long before 64 bit processors, thus will never be able to run as a 64 bit program. It would take a major rewrite of the code for that to happen. AS for using the dual core (i.e. 2 processors), most home applications cannot take advantage of this technology. Until home apps are built for both 64 bit and multiprocessor capability, we will just have to wait. Having a dual core now will be good in the future, there are very very few programs (or games for that matter) that can take full advantage of having a dual core system.

[UK_RON]

Cheers for all the replies and from my own searches I really am of the belief that it is about time PC manufacturers/CPU manufacturers/Games programmers have all got a lot to answer for.

It is for these very reasons that I fully believe that too may people are about to purchase FSX ignorant of the realities and that is that PC technology is not good enough, games technology just isn't good enough so why should we keep deluding each other that this great game of ours is about to leap forward when in reality we are all almost certain to need to spend serious amounts of cash to actually gain any apparent benefits of any updates to MSFS.

I for one will not be persuaded to purchase this programme until such times as I can either upgrade my PC in all areas to be able to run it and not until I see the results of all the "REAL" BETA testing many of this community are about to undertake "free of charge" for micros**t.

Why can't we get people to wake up and stop fuelling business for the sake of a supposed "new" prgram when what he have is more than adequate for the purpose for which it is being used?


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