dual core perfect?!?

[daaceking]

hello,

I know there is a lot of quad core debate so my question isn't about that.

I have read that dual is perfect, hence no quad support needed. fair enough. but i can't help notice that when i emulate armageddon on my system with a single 3.06Ghz, the kombat runs at a rubbish 10fps. so if i get dual i'll get 20fps. so how are people getting it to run at full speed. i know some systems are 4ghz overclocked but that only goes around 30fps in my calculations

anyone know how i can speed up my game?

dolphin emu has less work in but seems to have better sound and even faster than pcsx2.

[Sythedragon]

It's all to do with architecture.
The P4's sucked, clock speed means nothing if the chip can't peform.

[rama]

And dolphin doesn't emulate the ps2. A simple ADD on dolphins cpu emulation could be 3 sse ops, while pcsx2's has to be 10 sse ops.
Both do "the same work", but dolphins ADD is easier to do.

[daaceking]

i'm just saying dolphin is faster, main q is speed on pcs2.

so what u guys are sayings is dual is non comparable with a p4. big difference? (assuming no overclock.)

i am gonna get a multi core. i was thinking a q6600 quad for gta4 but i'm wondering if the 2.3ghz per core is fast enough to emulate pcsx2. overall, i want the quad but i want to play some legendary ps2 games too.

i read a thread where someone was advised to get an E**** dual core over the q6600. is there a large difference between the two? in terms of emulation considering pcsx2 is dual not quad compatible. i don't really want to get a high end quad.

[Shadow Lady]

so what u guys are sayings is dual is non comparable with a p4. big difference? (assuming no overclock.)

The problem is the difference of the chips as the Pentium 4 wasnt a good performer even at big clock speeds. If we take your example a dual core Pentium 4 would be almost exactly as the Pentium D with 3GHz, problem with it is that even the lowest of the Core 2 Duo performs better than this, for example the core 2 duo E2180 with only 2GHz and very low cache size would work much better than the Pentium D 3Ghz (which is basically a pentium 4 dual core).

The real thing why someone would recommend a E*** dual core over Quads is because pcsx2 benefits more of higher raw power, where usually a dual core compared to a quad core at same price will have higher power (GHz) at same range. However take in count on other applications (althou not many) more cores would give better performance.

Also no matter calculations you think are right, the performance increase on higher speed or cores is not linear so you cant just calculate it like that really

[daaceking]

there's a multi core p4?!? wow, i was talkin about single lol. i have alot to learn.

i understand a dual is better than a quad of the same price but i have to take into account that gta4 is a quad recommendation :-P

the q6600 has 8mb cache, is it good? will i get good speed?

i didn't know each core was unique, i assumed they were the same e.g. when u buy memory u have to get the exact same one you have got, you can't mix and match (assuming multiple memory)

[pimpinpenguin]

I have a Q6600 and it runs GTA4 and PCSX2 fine. I've overclocked it to 2.7 currently and i'm planning on increasing that. The Q6600 overclocks very well and can easily do 3GHZ on stock cooling. PCSX2 will only use 2 of the cores, but it'll use them to the max just like duel core. If you do get a Quad then i recommend getting an i7 then you'll be able to use the sse4 GS plugin and it'll run GTA 4 better.

[KrazyTrumpeter05]

The Q6600 is a good, solid processor. Very affordable, easily overclockable to 3.2ghz. Pretty much the best PC part purchase I've ever made.

[daaceking]

does it perform when not overclocked? and does it matter if you use sse2 rather than the others?

[Shadow Lady]

Yep it's a good performer but for PCSX2 not so much, the recommended clock speed for a Core 2 CPU is 2.8Ghz and higher for average PCSX2 gaming. You'd have to OC it a little if you want the best PCSX2 experience but well either way it's good if you want it