Will GPU ever be more important than CPU?
#1
Hello.
I'm just wondering if getting full FPS will depend more on the GPU than the CPU, as Pcsx2 progresses.
As I understand it, right now, (high-end CPU) + (mid-range GPU) is better than (mid-range CPU) + (high-end GPU). Might this ever change?
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#2
Yes, at some point it's going to be low-end CPU + low-end GPU = playable PCSX2... But that'll probably take 5 or so years as "low-end" computer components get better.


If you mean by today computer standards, then no... The vast majority of the work for this (and basically all other emulators) is done in software recompiling and executing code... IE needs a good CPU.


And in all actuality... You don't need a high-end CPU. My processor cost me about $100 and almost all games play full speed except for certain ones that play super slow no matter what type of machine you have. That's about the price of a ATI HD4770, which is one of the recommended GPUs for PCSX2.
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#3
I think the GPU won't become more important anymore, because even mid-range GPUs are capable of displaying most PS2 games in higher resolutions.

For CPUs I see the tendency of adding more cores, which does not help PCSX2 at all. Quad Core support is extremely hard to code, let alone 6 or more core support. PCSX2 needs efficient, highly clocked CPUs, however the CPU developers make their life easy with merely adding more cores, which idle around. It may take some time until you can play all PCSX2 games on a non-overclocked CPU, until AMD and Intel release new CPUs with huge steps forward in performance per MHz.
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#4
SamSoNight Wrote:I think the GPU won't become more important anymore, because even mid-range GPUs are capable of displaying most PS2 games in higher resolutions.

Yes, you are right because in my PC the default Video Adapter is Intel G33/G31 Express chipset Family which is not a GPU but that was giving me about 35-45FPS @ SVR08 and 40-55Fps at the NEW GPU i see no Improvment. but i now With PCSX2 Beta 1888 I M able to Get 50-72FPS and at the Startup the FPS is 200-500FPS. therefore v just hav to wait the Pcsx2 is getting Faster and Faster.
   
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#5
(11-03-2009, 08:07 AM)SamSoNight Wrote: For CPUs I see the tendency of adding more cores, which does not help PCSX2 at all. Quad Core support is extremely hard to code, let alone 6 or more core support. PCSX2 needs efficient, highly clocked CPUs, however the CPU developers make their life easy with merely adding more cores, which idle around.

well - that might be right for AMD so far but my experience on intel CPUs is a different one - even if the application doesnt support more than x cores - more cores do ALWAYS help - at least with intel CPUs - ever since intel is going multi-core and even on the HT singlecores i noticed that they seem to split the load across all physical and logical cores even if the app just supported one core

thats my experience - this is how i came to it:

about 2 years ago my bro and i both had socket 939 athlon 64 single core CPUs - then we upgradet to new mobos and dual core CPU's - he stayed with amd and got himself an AM2 athlon x2 5000+ and i spent a little more money on a core2 duo - now - if my bro runs a single core app on his AMD that pushes one of his cores to full load then the one core IS at full load leaving the other core almost idle - if i run the same app my intel seems to have one core at about 70-80% load while the other one seems to also support the app because the load increases on that core too - not about as much as on the core running the app but to about 40 - 60% anyway

i don't know how intel does that but i always get the job done faster than my bro and outscore him on almost any game or benchmark despite the fact that he has a Geforce 8600 with 1024mb of Vram and i just got 256mb on my 8600

and even with a singlecore, HT enabled CPU like the Pentium 4 i was rarely able to stress out my system to the point it didn't respond any more while on my single core athlon that was a common situation

thats why i want that core i7 so bad because i know how intel HT and dual core CPUs rock - now if i imagine having 4 HT enabled cores wich makes 8 logical cores - even if the most apps don't support more than 2 cores yet i expect a HUGE performance boost because of the way intel seems to deal with threading

and i read that the i7 has another nice feature too - if the CPU detects heavy load on just one or 2 of the cores it automatically overclocks them a little bit while clocking down the more-idle cores to keep thermal output below the specified limit - at least that's what i read

I am, however, NOT an intel fanboy or something - had AMD for years because of the very good price / performance ratio and they always did a great job

i just experienced intel doing the job a bit better - the flip-side is that they are expensive
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#6
(11-03-2009, 04:10 PM)Umino Wrote: about 2 years ago my bro and i both had socket 939 athlon 64 single core CPUs - then we upgradet to new mobos and dual core CPU's - he stayed with amd and got himself an AM2 athlon x2 5000+ and i spent a little more money on a core2 duo - now - [...]

Let's pause right there for a minute. Any judgements made from the following analysis will likely be correct, but only for Athlon X2 processors. The X2 had some rather severe design flaws in it's multi-core architecture that tended to have significant impact on it's performance. To get even decent performance from one you needed to make sure to download and install AMD's Dual Core Optimizer, and even then performance was... iffy. Some X2's also had faulty heat/load sensors and would end up cycling between full clock speed and idle clock speeds (~60%) when placed under load.

All of these things are fixed in the Phenom series, in addition to the Phenom having faster execution units and smarter caches (able to push more instructions per cycle, for faster performance at the same clock speed).

That said, the i7 is still clearly superior to the Phenom; but while the gap between the Athlon X2 and the Core2Duo was a deep chasm from which one side could not see the other, the gap between the Phenom and i7 is fairly subtle, once you factor in the Phenom's budget appeal anyway.
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#7
Concerning the topic at hand:

Yes, CPU will always be more important than GPU for PCSX2. This is especially true since it is technically impossible for any current GPU to emulate the PS2's GS accurately. Barring the significant changes to GPU design, the only option for accurate emulation of the GS is software rendering. And as CPUs become ever-more powerful the idea of having upscaled software rendering becomes more feasible (especially since software rendering can utilize many cores with some effectiveness).

It's possible GPUs will undergo significant design changes, however it seems more likely that modern "super-GPUs" may disappear entirely and be superseded by something more similar to that of the Cell-style design of the current generation of gaming consoles. In that case, the integrated CPU will do everything except basic "pixel pushing" (fundamental no-thrills, high-performance, shader-based texture mapping in a compact low-power GPU that won't cause your entire case to heat up by 10c just to display Aero-themed windows).
Jake Stine (Air) - Programmer - PCSX2 Dev Team
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#8
(11-03-2009, 04:10 PM)Umino Wrote: well - that might be right for AMD so far but my experience on intel CPUs is a different one - even if the application doesnt support more than x cores - more cores do ALWAYS help - at least with intel CPUs - ever since intel is going multi-core and even on the HT singlecores i noticed that they seem to split the load across all physical and logical cores even if the app just supported one core

thats my experience - this is how i came to it:

about 2 years ago my bro and i both had socket 939 athlon 64 single core CPUs - then we upgradet to new mobos and dual core CPU's - he stayed with amd and got himself an AM2 athlon x2 5000+ and i spent a little more money on a core2 duo - now - if my bro runs a single core app on his AMD that pushes one of his cores to full load then the one core IS at full load leaving the other core almost idle - if i run the same app my intel seems to have one core at about 70-80% load while the other one seems to also support the app because the load increases on that core too - not about as much as on the core running the app but to about 40 - 60% anyway

Multi-core CPUs will typically have the load balanced on multiple cores even when using a single-threaded application. This does not mean that it somehow runs two or more threads, just that the work is spread over multiple cores. If you add up the CPU usage across all cores for a particular single threaded process, it should not exceed 100% of one core. For example on a dual core, you might get 60% usage on one core and 40% maximum on the other for that particular process. Any additional CPU usage is most likely for other processes in the background. You could check this by clicking the 'Processes' tab in Task Manager and sorting by CPU usage. The single-threaded process that you use should not exceed (100 / number of cores) % usage.
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#9
Agreed. This is why multi-core with more than 2 cores is useless.
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#10
Not really, many games coming out are starting to use that extra power in multi core systems. GTA 4, ARMA II Devil May Cry 4, Resident Evil 5(Hell you might as well say all games built on Capcoms MT Framework), H.A.W.X, Many RTS games, I think Borderlands, etc. Plus DX11 will also bring better use of multi core cpus as well. As of now, I think that atleast 3 cores are needed to max out all games on the pc games on the market. Plus PCSX2s software mode makes use of multicore systems as well, and software mode might be what is mainly worked on in the future since Air said that it is impossible to completely emulate the GS accurately with todays gpus.
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