Another Dual Core gaming issue

Not sure if this is the right forum, but if not perhaps you can direct me to a better one.

I recently updated my box to be a little bit more modern (was running a k6 1.3 ghz mobo that was state of the art when I bought it years ago). However it now appears that dual core isn’t necessarily the way to go.

Most all programs seem to scream with the exception of several games – specifically BF2 and Morrowind. The games may start but after a few minutes the computer either reboots or goes to the blue screen of death and I need to force a restart. I know that others are getting by just fine with dual core so I don’t know what is the specific issue with my box. I have performed all driver updates (I think I haven’t missed any), BIOS update, plus any software updates (games AND Windows) – I have even done the recommended patches from AMD’s website.

Any thoughts? Here is my box:
• Windows XP Home
• ECS NFORCE6M-A v2.0 MOBO
• AMD X-2 5600+ cpu
• 4 gigs DDR-2 800 ram (2 gig Corsair, 2 gig OCZ)
• ATI Radeon X700 Pro video card (256 mhz)
• Generic 420 watt power supply
• Generic CD & DVD-R/W

as soon as i see the words generic and psu bad thoughts occur, still it should be able to handle that sort of components.

all in all a cpu can not cause that sort of problems just because it is dual core. indeed how you came to such a conclusion is beyond me.

i would look more to your ram, psu or heat for your problems, perhaps even just a reinstall of your OS whatever it may be.

If you're getting blue screens looking here should give you a better idea of where the problem is.

My second worry after the PSU is the RAM. Are both the OCZ and Corsair rated for the same voltage? I get a lot of BSODs if the voltage isn't spot on with the RAM (never mind more than 2 sticks always being a lot harder to get stable). You could try dropping to just pairs from one brand at a time, then a mixed pair, and load up the system to see if there's a problem.

I am assuming that there is something goofy about the system, I just haven't been able to put my finger on it.

Everything else runs fantastic (quite fast compared to what I was used to). My only issues are with BF2 and Morrowind. Doing a Google search, it appears that both of these programs have issues with dual core processors and there are various work-arounds, none of them as of yet have worked with my situation.

i've never ever ever found a program that does - the biggest issue is it not taking advantage of multiple threads i would have thought

BF2 has big problems with dual cores, the fix annoyingly is to start the game, ctrl-alt, delete into task manager, select the process and set its affinity to cpu 1 only.

i have to do this with BF2, otherwise i get disconnected from servers every 10seconds.

update both games to there most recent patch.... if BF2 still doesnt work, just buy COD4 its a much better game.

i dont know if setting the affinity would work in morrowind.

Thanks for the replies - It almost sounds like BF2 will be moved to the "wish I could play" pile.

But in other news, there are probably a whole string of games that I can now play that I couldnt before.

Have a good one.

There are a lot of older games that do not run correctly on dual core systems.
To fix these apps in a more permanent fashion vs the taskmanager way


# Download imagecfg. Google it lots of sources out there.
# Unzip it to Windows\system32\ as well as Windows\system32\dllcache\.
# Make a backup copy of your exe.

imagecfg -u yourapp.exe

this will set the app to uniprocessor mode, it will only run on one core.

Did you install the dual core patch from amd and microsoft?

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256


http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processor [...] 06,00.html