Aion, Dual core duo vs Quad.

[Cronos18]

Just have a few questions based on processors for gaming but more specifically for aion.

Just a note, When upgrading from dual core 2.2ghz to dual core duo 3.0 oc'd to 3.8ghz I noticed a huge difference in WotLK with 4 gigs of ram at 600 mhz and a 8800 gt graphics card.

I now have a Gtx 275 4 gigs of ram @ 800mhz and the dual core duo 3.8ghz oc'd processor. Aion runs pretty good, usually getting 60 fps with anti aliasing off and vert sync on so i dont screen tear, and even with anti aliasing off if its a small questing area with not a lot of people I reach 60 fps with drops usually as low as 40-50. I noticed my memory is said to stay around 70 percent use according to my program for my g15 keyboard with i think is based on ntune. And my processor generallly when im getting good fps is around 30-50 percent, and when it peaks and i get a fps spike around 60-80 + Cpu. Generally my first cpu is getting a lot more usage then my second one, the second one i think peaks around 50 usually just from looking at it now.



Anyways my simple question is, Will a Quad core cpu (at same clock speeds, expensive :S ) not use all 4 cores for gaming but rather still give me a good advantage over dual core duo because it will offload windows OS and background rescources (running msn itunes sometimes, avg and mouse/keyboard app in the background) Closing the app's hasnt made much difference really at all, its not much of a problem just wondering what my bottleneck is and im assuming its my processor. I got money if It's worth it.

[zybch]

Pretty much, yes.
Most games aren't optimized very well for 2 let alone 4 cores yet as its a damn difficult thing to do well and still retain stability. But having additional cores available for the OS and related processes will help a bit with freeing up the ones running the game.
As for the RAM usage at 70%, its kind of meaningless, at least if you're running a 32bit OS. All 32bit windows can only dedicate a max of 2Gb to any individual program, and can only use a bit over 3Gb anyway, even if you have 4Gb of RAM installed.
When you upgrade to win7 get the 64bit version and more of your RAM can be used.

[ShyguyXPC]

zybch's post

+

... Post #5 from your other thread... Best Processor Upgrade for Gaming Excluding Core I5/7 or AMD

as to Quad core, if your multi tasking or running a lot of programs with your games, a Quad could help.

problem is, I don't know of any way other than manually setting the affinity of a program to the cores, (assigning a program to run on specific cores), usually everytime you start a program, you have to go into task manager, right click the process for the program, and then set the affinity, selecting or deselecting so its running on the cores you want... if a lot of programs running its an annoyingly time consuming task.

as soon as the program is shut down, or restarted, you have to do that all over again.

but a Quad core could alleviate some of the CPU stress, by dividing the programs amongst the additional cores, but only if they're designed to utilize the extra cores, otherwise the extra cores sit their idle more or less.