You don't need specific software applications to take advantage of SMP(Symmetrical Multi-Processing). Windows XP supports multiple processing units. This means that even if the application you are using doesn't take advantage of both cores, you will see the benefits. If you are running your game, you now will be able to encode a video file in the background without seeing a drop in your framerates. You will be able to RAR huge files while listening to MP3's while running a virus scan while playing a Video game. All this because you effectively have another CPU to take care of all those "background" activities that most gamers with single core CPU's have to turn off or quit because they'll lose performance.
I run VMware Workstation and this allows me to have two different operating systems running at the exact same time without seeing any slowdown. I tried doing that with my old P4 2.8, with a similar system setup as I have now and my system slowed to a crawl. It's really quite amazing what adding one more CPU will do for you.
Ignore these uninformed people who tell you dual core is a waste of money, because you don't need "software support" for them. It's already been around for years, since W2K. And before that in SunOS, Mac OS, Unix, Linux, and many others.
I run VMware Workstation and this allows me to have two different operating systems running at the exact same time without seeing any slowdown. I tried doing that with my old P4 2.8, with a similar system setup as I have now and my system slowed to a crawl. It's really quite amazing what adding one more CPU will do for you.
Ignore these uninformed people who tell you dual core is a waste of money, because you don't need "software support" for them. It's already been around for years, since W2K. And before that in SunOS, Mac OS, Unix, Linux, and many others.