New Chip Design - impact on sims?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

AMD unveils dual-core chips for desktop PCs
Tuesday, May 31, 2005



SAN JOSE, California -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is
launching its first PC microprocessors with two computing
engines on a single chip Tuesday, further expanding its
product line with a technology that's expected to be a
major driver of PC performance for years to come.

The four chips to be announced Tuesday at the Computex
trade show in Taiwan are targeted at high-end personal
computers used for advanced tasks such as creating or
editing digital media. In April, AMD introduced dual-core
chips for servers and workstations.

AMD's announcement of the Athlon 64 X2 comes less than a
week after Intel Corp. launched its first mainstream dual-
core chips, dubbed the Pentium D.

Both companies have been in a tight race to deliver the
processors since engineers realized that simply ratcheting
up the clock speed of single-core chips was creating too
much heat and not producing the same improvements seen in
previous models.

It became apparent that performance could be boosted by
creating two computing cores and running them at a slower
speed on a single chip.

AMD claims its chips have been designed from the start for
dual-core use, and early reviews indicate they outperform
Intel's offering despite the larger chip maker's higher
frequencies. AMD's chips also can address larger amounts of
memory than Intel's current dual-core offerings.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05151/513042.stm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

Well Sim development has been rather slow anyway, with fewer new
titles, and more people stretching out the service lives of existing
titles. When F4 premiered in '97, did anybody think that it would
still have a following 8 years later?

I'm not lamenting the sudden abrogation of Moore's law. AMD isn't
saying that they can't go faster, only that they've found a workaround
for a heat problem that would plague chips if they did go faster. I
find that a welcome change from the attitude of speed at any price.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

Mitchell Holman wrote:
> AMD unveils dual-core chips for desktop PCs
> (...)
> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05151/513042.stm

It is safe to assume that since F4, most sims are multi-threaded
programs, so it should improve performance as the various threads will
share two rather than one CPU's. Even those sims who aren't
multi-threaded should benefit as these still have to share the CPU(s)
with the Windows plumbing (DirectX etc).

I am a bit bothered by the rationale for this multiprocessor-on-a-chip
approach, though. The article hints that this is a workaround to
increased clock rates which are more and more difficult to achieve. Now
in the Good Old Days(tm) we got both a substantial increase in
transistor count AND clock rate for each new CPU generation. In the
sub-GHz era, PC performance increased at an exponential rate (or felt
like it). Nowadays, it seems to me that it is linear at best. Additional
speed bumps in the bus or memory departements do not help either.

IMHO, the problem with this is that for a sim to look or feel 2X better,
the workload on the hardware has to be much more than 2X larger. This is
obvious in the graphics department, but I suspect it also holds in the
physics and AI departments. Under these assumptions, I wouldn't be
surprised for sim progress to become more incremental (provided that the
bean counters still believe that there is a valuable market for PC sims,
that is).

This may sound rather negative, but there might be some good news too.
The devs will have to work more on gameplay issues to compensate for the
slower progress rate in other departments. Some focus shifting a bit
from visual effects to addictiveness and atmosphere couldn't be bad
(case in point: Condor). Also, my hardware upgrade cycle can now be
stretched a bit, which saves me money for err... other hobbies

Regards,
Mr. S.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

"Mr. Sylvestre" <MrSylvestre@worldcompany.com> wrote in news:d7i2em$3bv$1
@ikaria.belnet.be:

> Mitchell Holman wrote:
>> AMD unveils dual-core chips for desktop PCs
>> (...)
>> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05151/513042.stm
>
> It is safe to assume that since F4, most sims are multi-threaded
> programs, so it should improve performance as the various threads will
> share two rather than one CPU's. Even those sims who aren't
> multi-threaded should benefit as these still have to share the CPU(s)
> with the Windows plumbing (DirectX etc).
>
> I am a bit bothered by the rationale for this multiprocessor-on-a-chip
> approach, though. The article hints that this is a workaround to
> increased clock rates which are more and more difficult to achieve. Now
> in the Good Old Days(tm) we got both a substantial increase in
> transistor count AND clock rate for each new CPU generation. In the
> sub-GHz era, PC performance increased at an exponential rate (or felt
> like it). Nowadays, it seems to me that it is linear at best. Additional
> speed bumps in the bus or memory departements do not help either.
>
> IMHO, the problem with this is that for a sim to look or feel 2X better,
> the workload on the hardware has to be much more than 2X larger. This is
> obvious in the graphics department, but I suspect it also holds in the
> physics and AI departments. Under these assumptions, I wouldn't be
> surprised for sim progress to become more incremental (provided that the
> bean counters still believe that there is a valuable market for PC sims,
> that is).
>
> This may sound rather negative, but there might be some good news too.
> The devs will have to work more on gameplay issues to compensate for the
> slower progress rate in other departments. Some focus shifting a bit
> from visual effects to addictiveness and atmosphere couldn't be bad
> (case in point: Condor). Also, my hardware upgrade cycle can now be
> stretched a bit, which saves me money for err... other hobbies
>
> Regards,
> Mr. S.



Sounds like grounds to put off replacing that
computer for awhile..........

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

I have a 1 1/2 year old P4 Northwood 3.2 @3.6 with a one year old Radeon
X800 XT PE in my main PC and I will get at least another year out of it with
no suffering, I have never had a setup that has felt so fast and so good for
so long, no urge to upgrade at all and that is certainly not me. My HTPC
connected to an HDTV which I also sometimes game on got a mobo/CPU swap when
I accidentally destroyed its P4 3.0 HT during a heatsink swap, disgusted I
decided to try my first AMD setup and got an A64 3200 with an ASUS Via
chipset board. The AMD is definitely noticeably faster in gaming with the
9700 AIW but Hyperthreading does make a difference in some apps and when
multitasking, overall the Hyperthreaded P4 3.0 felt a bit faster for general
use with occasional AMD weird slowness in certain apps like it taking about
3 times as long to setup the Guide+ downloads for the AIW. The thing that
impressed me most about the Via/AMD combo is that it was as easy to setup as
anything Intel and is completely rock solid in a rig that is on 24/7 for
recording purposes. If I were buying a new main PC now I would be looking
at AMD more than Intel. I do have also a bedroom HTPC setup with my old P4
2.4, non hyperthreaded CPU with RDRAM and it so noticeably slower than
either the P4 3.0 HT or the AMD 3200. At any rate I am happy that I am not
yet tempted to replace a thing, The only upgrades I have done in the past
year have been storage and cooling.


One of the few that still prefers CRTs, hugging my Viewsonic P225
Diamondtron monitor that I hope to get many more years out of.


"Mitchell Holman" <ta2eneNoEmail*@comcast.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9667B1F2D9C1Fta2eene2@216.196.97.131...
> "Mr. Sylvestre" <MrSylvestre@worldcompany.com> wrote in news:d7i2em$3bv$1
> @ikaria.belnet.be:
>
>> Mitchell Holman wrote:
>>> AMD unveils dual-core chips for desktop PCs
>>> (...)
>>> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05151/513042.stm
>>
>> It is safe to assume that since F4, most sims are multi-threaded
>> programs, so it should improve performance as the various threads will
>> share two rather than one CPU's. Even those sims who aren't
>> multi-threaded should benefit as these still have to share the CPU(s)
>> with the Windows plumbing (DirectX etc).
>>
>> I am a bit bothered by the rationale for this multiprocessor-on-a-chip
>> approach, though. The article hints that this is a workaround to
>> increased clock rates which are more and more difficult to achieve. Now
>> in the Good Old Days(tm) we got both a substantial increase in
>> transistor count AND clock rate for each new CPU generation. In the
>> sub-GHz era, PC performance increased at an exponential rate (or felt
>> like it). Nowadays, it seems to me that it is linear at best. Additional
>> speed bumps in the bus or memory departements do not help either.
>>
>> IMHO, the problem with this is that for a sim to look or feel 2X better,
>> the workload on the hardware has to be much more than 2X larger. This is
>> obvious in the graphics department, but I suspect it also holds in the
>> physics and AI departments. Under these assumptions, I wouldn't be
>> surprised for sim progress to become more incremental (provided that the
>> bean counters still believe that there is a valuable market for PC sims,
>> that is).
>>
>> This may sound rather negative, but there might be some good news too.
>> The devs will have to work more on gameplay issues to compensate for the
>> slower progress rate in other departments. Some focus shifting a bit
>> from visual effects to addictiveness and atmosphere couldn't be bad
>> (case in point: Condor). Also, my hardware upgrade cycle can now be
>> stretched a bit, which saves me money for err... other hobbies
>>
>> Regards,
>> Mr. S.
>
>
>
> Sounds like grounds to put off replacing that
> computer for awhile..........
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

I just got a new Dell Dimension with a 3ghz P4. It's a gift after my
2ghz burned through its MoBo, so I din't choose it, and it's pretty new
so I haven't been able to determine if it's one of those Northwood
chips. On a related angle, I'm not even sure I'm one of those users
who can know what a Northwood chip is - though it sounds pretty hot.
Since getting my last machine, I was seldom in the position where I
felt the need to upgrade, though I seldom got the hottest games. I
figured if I could run the latest version of MSFS, I was safe; and that
when a version of that came out that wasn't feasibly playable, I'd
still put off an upgrade. I was always shooting past a step up from my
machine. That said, if I'm not a hardcore gamer, do I need the latest
Radeon or 6600/6800 class graphics card? At this point, I just
installed a new soundcard just so I could get a gameport, and I was
happy enough to get my thrustmaster set-up working. That said, I
didn't really need to put off an upgrade...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

I believe the solution to gaming nirvana has been a multi-cpu
environment including the latest in SLI technology. Four small CPUs
can work substantially better and more efficient than a single CPU
running at 5x the frequency. The key issue of course is software
design and implementation. Imagine Il2 being coded for a dual CPU
platform. Currently, a majority of internal number crunching is pinned
to a single CPU. Imagine dual CPUs where AI and physics could be
performed on one CPU and DM/FM could be hanlded on the other. Finally,
all the graphics crunching on the GPU. The game would run like glass.
Problem of course dual CPUs won't be mainstream for another decade. In
the meantime, we'll be forced to upgrade like made to get 25 fps.