Bottlenecked cpu

[peyman_tp]

Hello. I have been trying to play World in Conflict on my PC. So far, I've been getting an average fps of 22 at very high settings wit 16X AF and 4xAA and 1680x1024 res. I have a gpu thats well above the recomended system requirements of the game (GTX 260 Core 216) and plenty of RAM. The problem is my cpu. It is a very old AMD Athlon X2 4000+ @ 2.1 Ghz (Im planning 2 buy a new one in 2 months). This is my question: exactly what is the cpu's task during gaming? I can reduce the quality of those tasks in the graphics settings and make my game smoother. (I've noticed that My display slows down during explosions)

Thanks.

 

[loneninja]

The cpu needs to calculate every bit of scripting in a game, all the code and programming. It needs to read through all the statements and control basically every aspect of the game, that gpu of yours just puts a pretty image on the screen.

In the sense of an RTS, every single additional unit on the map is more AI the cpu needs to control, and every bit of damage delt is more calculations the cpu must make to determine if a unit lives or dies.

 

[peyman_tp]

so there isnt any specific setting i could decrease to make the game smoother?.....thnx

 

[Herr_Koos]

I would recommend you just tune everything down. Shadows and textures can be especially demanding, and AA is a real frame-rate killer in some cases.

By the way, what motherboard are you using? Chances are it will have to be replaced as well to accommodate a newer CPU.

 

[4745454b]

I'm not sure what settings WiC has, so I can't tell you what to turn down. Try anything "obviously" CPU related. What I can suggest is to try turning things OFF ONE at a time. Do the FPS go up? If so, it was CPU related. Shadows should be mostly GPU related btw.