Core 2 Duo is enough for now, just not later.

[evilpaul]

Glad I have a quad.

Like games are multithreaded.

[The Blackrose]

Like games are multithreaded.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. All comes down to how well the game is programmed on a multithreading level. Which is why this whole discussion is retarded without knowing the actual system specs.

[Olo401]

I think people are also forgetting that the Core 2 Duo has been around since July 2006, and since those first ones were released they've become much faster, better optimized and have included larger on-die cache. I have a Duo E8400 and I have no doubts it'll run XIV just fine, but an E6XXX series Duo with a lower clock will probably choke a bit on FPS.

[xopher]

Like games are multithreaded.

Saw an interview where Square said they were going to take advantage of such things like muti-core processors.

I have no fucking clue where I saw this interview though

edit:

here it is

http://www.ffxivinfo.com/news.php?item=10

[The Blackrose]

The other thing that's nagging the shit out of me is we're sitting here all tied up on the processor side when what we should be asking is if the GPU is being touched at all. They should be using our video cards and putting less strain on the processors this time around. Would almost be retarded not to.

[Olo401]

The other thing that's nagging the shit out of me is we're sitting here all tied up on the processor side when what we should be asking is if the GPU is being touched at all. They should be using our video cards and putting less strain on the processors this time around. Would almost be retarded not to.

That's where the version of DirectX comes into play. I would hope they make the game require at LEAST DX10, but the OP mentions the possibility that it'll be DX9.

[Gulkeeva]

Just think... a quad core is FASTER then a dual core (with lower overall mhz rating) on a game that only supports single core

So I'm sure... that future 6 core, will be faster then a 4 core cpu (unless you get the economy version thats got near no features etc on it if thats planned)

probably biggest change though is a built in GPU into the CPU to boost performance...

already we see GPU accelerated video encoding that cuts down video encoding like... 6-7min video from 45min to like 5-10min and GPU accelerated flash playback that reduces cpu usage /frame skips (on old cpus according to benchmarks you can find on google) from like HD youtube videos by 50-70%.

6 core cpu's with GPU power will probably be one the bigger performance boosts seen in cpu's in past... well long time

[The Blackrose]

Even if it's just DX9, that's well above and beyond how it currently operates. I wouldn't necessarily want to force people to adopt W7 just to play FFXIV...

[Gulkeeva]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-6-Core-Xeo...item414aaa1101

The internet is a scary place... although thats a engineering sample O_o

[Destinye]

The other thing that's nagging the shit out of me is we're sitting here all tied up on the processor side when what we should be asking is if the GPU is being touched at all. They should be using our video cards and putting less strain on the processors this time around. Would almost be retarded not to.

Considering they already said it's being built on the PC first then ported to the PS3 (and probably 360 whenever) it would make sense they build it to utilize the GPU more than the CPU compared to what consoles do.

[njitjk68]

Just think... a quad core is FASTER then a dual core (with lower overall mhz rating) on a game that only supports single core

So I'm sure... that future 6 core, will be faster then a 4 core cpu (unless you get the economy version thats got near no features etc on it if thats planned)

There is no difference in performance between a quad and duo in the same chip family, unless the program that is being run is multi-threaded.

If you were to take an i7 and disable some cores, you would get the same performance out of it unless the software is able to take advantage of more than 1 core.

[The Blackrose]

Furthermore, building a GPU into he CPU completely negates the whole purpose of the GPU in the first place. If you already have the architecture present elsewhere, you'd be an idiot not to take advantage of it and direct the free processing cycles elsewhere.

[Olo401]

There is no difference in performance between a quad and duo in the same chip family, unless the program that is being run is multi-threaded.

If you were to take an i7 and disable some cores, you would get the same performance out of it unless the software is able to take advantage of more than 1 core.

That may have been initially true of Duo vs. Quad (since the first Quads were just two Duo cores linked together with common access to the cache) but the later ones were much different from the Duos that were released in the same timeframe. And for the i7s you now have two completely different variants that require different motherboards with different sockets & chipsets, can use memory differently, etc..

And btw disabling cores will hurt your performance in everything, but quads will handle it better

[Isiolia]

When dealing with single-threaded apps, given the same architecture, clock speed tends to dominate. Quad cores aren't automatically better.
The i5/i7 architecture is better, but they also purposely turn off cores in order to clock 1-2 of them higher for less threaded apps. It's got little to do with them being quad cores, and a lot more to do with Intel designing them to be flexible.

[Gulkeeva]

Furthermore, building a GPU into he CPU completely negates the whole purpose of the GPU in the first place. If you already have the architecture present elsewhere, you'd be an idiot not to take advantage of it and direct the free processing cycles elsewhere.

CPU does some things alot faster then a GPU, thats why we don't have a video card only running a machine.

Its why a cpu is also SLOWER then a gpu, because the cpu does "many many things" a gpu can't, while a GPU is focused on doing only a few things.

I don't have too much time to dive into what all the specifics are at work but this article explains it a little bit on why gpu+cpu will in the coming years (namely 2010) we will see such cpu's

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...nvergence-goes

But yeah... we will be seeing more "gpu powered" processing of things.. as the change is already happening with programs... I know several adobe programs like Photoshop, illustrator, flash professional etc is gpu powered already. Many "video encoder programs" are going gpu powered, the upcomming IE and firefox will be using GPU power.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=21338
http://www.tgdaily.com/software-feat...u-acceleration
http://theappleblog.com/2009/02/24/p...itor-for-os-x/

(this article is kind of interesting) 720 x 480 video realtime scaled to 1920 x 1080 only using 2% cpu power
http://www.tgdaily.com/software-feat...rated-software


Hell one day we might not even need a video card

[xopher]

Hell one day we might not even need a video card

More power is more power.

[Xaru]

Any word if this will run okay on 64-bit Windows?

[The Blackrose]

I don't have too much time to dive into what all the specifics are at work but this article explains it a little bit on why gpu+cpu will in the coming years (namely 2010) we will see such cpu's

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...nvergence-goes

Thanks for the read. By the way, I'm somewhat familiar with the underlying theory of graphical computation so I do know the advantages/disadvantages of both processing units.

Since we're starting to move further into multiple cores, now is the ideal time to see if we can find a way to condense both units into one sort of system that can be allocated at will (ie devoting one core, or even just a portion, to graphical instructions and operations). However, it will never hurt to have a separate, specialized type of processor for the operational demand that today's graphics can perform. Especially if you do not want those computations impacting performance on the same core.

[xopher]

Any word if this will run okay on 64-bit Windows?

http://www.ffxivinfo.com/news.php?item=10

Please read the whole thread. Thanks.

[Xaru]

http://www.ffxivinfo.com/news.php?item=10

Please read the whole thread. Thanks.

Cheers youth! x