Will this game benefit from Quad core?

I'm not the most techy guy in the world and have been reading up on dual core vs quad core etc. Whilst I accept the quad core is the way forward, most reviews seem to think that games don't benefit YET from quad core processing.

Would FM benefit or not?

I'd appreciate more fact based answers than assumptions as I am thinking of getting a new pc but this would make me decide between paying that bit extra or waiting another few years, as at home I don't really use the PC for anything that uses more processing power than FM at the moment.

Any help would be appreciated

i have a quad core and would like to know to

OK, I'll answer this for you.

As far as I'm aware, FM09 is NOT written to take advantage of 4 processing threads. In fact there is very little software that is. I suspect in the future we may see games that do.

Does the game run quicker? It may appear to because in most cases a single core of a quad core is more powerful than a single core of dual core. Saying this I mean there are a lot old pc's with dual cores, quad cores are a fairly newish thing. However you can get more powerful dual cores with cores more powerful than those on a quad core as you'd expect

Now where it could be quicker is if say you are streaming / downloading as well as running FM in parallel

Even saying this, some people have quad cores with just 2gb ram. Assuming they are running a 32bit operating system then they could have upto 3.5 gb ram accessible by windows / vista. Again Windows and Vista will affect the amount of RAM available since Vista is more memory intensive

On this basis its hard to equate what is better than what as there are many influencing factors e,g, you may find an older dual core running 32bit Win XP with 3.5 ram runs FM faster than a quad core machine with 32bit Vista with 2gb ram

If you are thinking of buying a new PC having a dual or quad core often depends on how you intend to use the machine. In terms of big reteailers such as PC World etc, they may offer more quad core machines and thus influence what the public buy simply by what they stock, not because its the fastest / best machine or even if it matches what the client wants

There are so called utilities such as PCMark06 that measure overall PC performance for a given set of tasks but for running FM09 it may not make any difference

Does this help?

In terms of waiting I'd always apply this principle. Whatever you buy now, there will be something better just around the corner so there is no point waiting.

An alternative is to consider a custom built pc / or PC that allows easier upgrading e.g. buyiong a custom built PC you could say over egg the PSU knowing in the future you were to add a more poweful graphic card, more power hungry mobo and cpu

I'd always by the best you can afford now but make sure you have a mobo that facilitates future upgrades. Some of the cack sold by PC World et all would limit future upgradeability

I thinkl you need to list / think that apart from FM09, what else will you do with your pc and what is your budget

OK, I'll answer this for you.

As far as I'm aware, FM09 is NOT written to take advantage of 4 processing threads. In fact there is very little software that is. I suspect in the future we may see games that do.

Does the game run quicker? It may appear to because in most cases a single core of a quad core is more powerful than a single core of dual core. Saying this I mean there are a lot old pc's with dual cores, quad cores are a fairly newish thing. However you can get more powerful dual cores with cores more powerful than those on a quad core as you'd expect

Now where it could be quicker is if say you are streaming / downloading as well as running FM in parallel

Even saying this, some people have quad cores with just 2gb ram. Assuming they are running a 32bit operating system then they could have upto 3.5 gb ram accessible by windows / vista. Again Windows and Vista will affect the amount of RAM available since Vista is more memory intensive

On this basis its hard to equate what is better than what as there are many influencing factors e,g, you may find an older dual core running 32bit Win XP with 3.5 ram runs FM faster than a quad core machine with 32bit Vista with 2gb ram

If you are thinking of buying a new PC having a dual or quad core often depends on how you intend to use the machine. In terms of big reteailers such as PC World etc, they may offer more quad core machines and thus influence what the public buy simply by what they stock, not because its the fastest / best machine or even if it matches what the client wants

There are so called utilities such as PCMark06 that measure overall PC performance for a given set of tasks but for running FM09 it may not make any difference

Does this help?

Id lol if it didnt help at all, but im immature

But more seriously, it could be worth just waiting for the prices to drop before getting quad core if there isnt that many programs that take advantage of it,

Why wait. I7 has just come out and quad core prices for the older chips have not changed. My old Athlon 64 4400 has kept its 2nd price the same over the last 2-3 years. Q6600 CPU is pretty cheap i'd say and one of the best for overclocking if that takes your fancy

Whilst FM may not take advante of four cores, having 4 cores would benefit you if you were doing multiple taks e.g. streaming / browsing etc

quad cores are the future, and with 8 cores not far away either despite software not yet available to take full advantge of 4 cores

FM will very much benefit from a quad core, it will create more match threads with more cores, so on match days it will get through playing matches faster.

Wait, this has confused me. We were always told that FM couldn't make use of more than two cores?

FM will very much benefit from a quad core, it will create more match threads with more cores, so on match days it will get through playing matches faster.

Do you want to have a think about this? From my experince there is no significant benefit having four cores. I'd be interested in any stats you have

In my experience. No it won't benefit. My system is a q6700 2.67GHz, 4GB RAM (using only 3.5GB), Vista Home Premium 32-bit. No matter what i do it will never use more than approximately 67% of my processor, and no more than 2GB of RAM. Still i experience lags and freezes. Processing is not really what i expected it to be. Much slower than expected. Black screens while it's processing and starting up new games. And it doesn't really matter if i'm running other programs in the background or not. Nor does it matter if i'm running one league or all leagues (which i'm doing right now).

Everything has been optimizied. Cleaned registry, defragmented, disabling services i don't really need - you name it. Nothing helps.

To answer your question, in my opinion i would say no. Regarding FM09, and FM09 only, i would say that Dual-core is better.

This is just my experience though, so that's why my answer is what it is.

Hmm. Kinda off-topic but will a 5400 rpm HD "kill" FM09 performance? (compared to 7200)

FM will very much benefit from a quad core, it will create more match threads with more cores, so on match days it will get through playing matches faster.

In my experience. No it won't benefit. My system is a q6700 2.67GHz, 4GB RAM (using only 3.5GB), Vista Home Premium 32-bit. No matter what i do it will never use more than approximately 67% of my processor, and no more than 2GB of RAM. Still i experience lags and freezes. Processing is not really what i expected it to be. Much slower than expected. Black screens while it's processing and starting up new games. And it doesn't really matter if i'm running other programs in the background or not. Nor does it matter if i'm running one league or all leagues (which i'm doing right now).

Everything has been optimizied. Cleaned registry, defragmented, disabling services i don't really need - you name it. Nothing helps.

To answer your question, in my opinion i would say no. Regarding FM09, and FM09 only, i would say that Dual-core is better.

This is just my experience though, so that's why my answer is what it is.

Dual core can't be better if the cores are the same for both dual and quad. It would just mean that 2 cores on the quad would sit there twidlling thumbs ?

Hmm. Kinda off-topic but will a 5400 rpm HD "kill" FM09 performance? (compared to 7200)

I don't know. I would suspect it would doing end of season updates / processing etc as it would be accessing the database. Wow - have you an old pc?

I don't know. I would suspect it would doing end of season updates / processing etc as it would be accessing the database. Wow - have you an old pc?

Nah its my laptop . At the time I bought it was very hard to find any laptop 7200 rpm HD. Even now I can barely find 3-4 with a 7200 rpm HD.

But actually I do have an old pc, with a 340 MB HD. Cant imagine its rpm though

I see PaulC echoing what Edl said in a thread yesterday. I suspect they know what they're talking about seeing as they created the game

Hmm. Kinda off-topic but will a 5400 rpm HD "kill" FM09 performance? (compared to 7200)

I see PaulC echoing what Edl said in a thread yesterday. I suspect they know what they're talking about seeing as they created the game

Have you a link to this thread and does it contain factual statistics / comparisons

I don't doubt it doesn't have any impact but I'm not convinced about significant impact. I'll wait for some more info

Dual core can't be better if the cores are the same for both dual and quad. It would just mean that 2 cores on the quad would sit there twidlling thumbs ?

Yeah, i agree with you on that. That's why i can't really figure it out.

To be honest, i have not read all the posts about dualcore vs quadcore, if you know what i mean. But from the ones i have read it seems like those with dual seems to have a more stable processing on the game. I can see activity on all my cores when my game is processing, but not all the time. And those times it happens it's like 15% on each core. I tried to untick threading once, but that nearly killed my game.

I don't know enough about cores and the difference between different processors, but i would like to think that a quad would be more efficient than single and dual. Not necessary faster since it also comes down to how fast the processor is.

Like i said. I really don't get it.

One thing i know is that FM08 was much faster on an old dualcore than FM09 is on my brand new quad.

Yeah, i agree with you on that. That's why i can't really figure it out.

To be honest, i have not read all the posts about dualcore vs quadcore, if you know what i mean. But from the ones i have read it seems like those with dual seems to have a more stable processing on the game. I can see activity on all my cores when my game is processing, but not all the time. And those times it happens it's like 15% on each core. I tried to untick threading once, but that nearly killed my game.

I don't know enough about cores and the difference between different processors, but i would like to think that a quad would be more efficient than single and dual. Not necessary faster since it also comes down to how fast the processor is.

Like i said. I really don't get it.

One thing i know is that FM08 was much faster on an old dualcore than FM09 is on my brand new quad.

Interesting, tell me whats changed.

How much Ram did you have / do you have

What operating system did you have / do you have

If you were running WinXP and now have Vista but with say 2gb Ram I could pinpoint your problem and offer a solution

Have you a link to this thread and does it contain factual statistics / comparisons

I don't doubt it doesn't have any impact but I'm not convinced about significant impact. I'll wait for some more info

There was a thread on here yeaterday, if you have a look at PaulC's recent posts you will see it. No factual info as such, he basically said the same as EdL.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?p=2429145#post2429145

Thanks - I don't believe there is really any information here to determine how much benefit there is.

From what Paul says it helps with bakground matches but what does this mean?

Matches run in other active leagues (I suspect not) or matches played in non active leagues e.g. teams in european / world competition.

If this is correct then whilst it helps, I would not consider this significant e.g. it just generates a result, not full match processing

I'd love to test this if I had the kit to do it on

Thanks - I don't believe there is really any information here to determine how much benefit there is.

From what Paul says it helps with bakground matches but what does this mean?

Matches run in other active leagues (I suspect not) or matches played in non active leagues e.g. teams in european / world competition.

If this is correct then whilst it helps, I would not consider this significant e.g. it just generates a result, not full match processing

I'd love to test this if I had the kit to do it on

I don't know mate. I presume it processes the matches alot faster. I've got a quad core but I jumped from a single core so it was always gonna be faster, I can run 15 leagues as if I was running 3 on my old machine but the actual factual benefits I'm not sure.

Thats likely individual core speed and increase in ram that makes a significant diffrence plus using 2 cores rather than 1

I think Paul C was very very careful what he said.

In summary there is a benefit, but I don't believe its significant, least I've seen no stats and neither have SI confirmed this in anything than a vague statement

Still even if its a bit faster then its an improvement which is better than none at al

Interesting, tell me whats changed.

How much Ram did you have / do you have

What operating system did you have / do you have

If you were running WinXP and now have Vista but with say 2gb Ram I could pinpoint your problem and offer a solution

No problem. Maybe i can get something clarified once and for all

Old Computer: Dualcore 3.06 GHZ

2GB RAM

120 GB HDD (7200 rpm)

ATI Radeon 9250 128 MB

Windows XP Home 32-bit

New Computer:Q6700 2.64 (Tried OC to 3.06GHz)

4GB RAM (3.5GHz since i'm using 32-bit OS)

1TB HDD (7200rpm)

nVidia GeForce GTX 260 896MB (up to 2200MB)

Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

The 2 biggest changes that seems to have effected everything the most is the OS and the speed of the processor. When i OC the processor to 3.06 (i have reverted back to the original) i couldn't really spot a difference at all. However right now, i've noticed by using Cpu-Z, that my processor drops down to 1.67GHz when it's idle. Thing is, it's not. FM09 is running. I managed to change that when i OCd but i've forgotten how to change it in the BIOS. But change wasn't noticable at all for me. So when it comes to FM, no change.

With Vista i know it uses more horsepower. I've disabled services that doesn't need to run.

I hope i've given you enough information for you to tell me something useful

What i don't get is all the freezes and black screens i experience. When i monitor the cpu use and memory, it doesn't really show me any reason why it should happen.

Actually thinking about this....I7 aside (very expensive at the moment with mobo bios issues) all quad cires are not really true quad cores, they are a pair of dual cores on the same silicon.

What we need is someone also with an I7 set-up and FM

''What i don't get is all the freezes and black screens i experience. When i monitor the cpu use and memory, it doesn't really show me any reason why it should happen.''

Tell me bout', trouble is SI don't know either :confused:

In all fairness. It was a lot worse on 9.1.0. But it's still there.

Vista will use more Ram. I note you have 4gb ram and you rightly say with 32 bit there is a maximum. I have 32bit Xp and 4gb ram but its only managing to make 3.2 available (I also have a HD4870 1gb graphic card)

How much is your system saying is available?

Despite this you should have more ram, plus you now have a quad core with each individual core processing at a quicker rate than the dual core.

OC can get complicated because you can get bottlenecks if the CPU only is OC'd, depending on how fast you set it

With all OC removed, does it run faster. Strictly speaking it should be faster on the new one.

From what you are describing I believe you have a problem unassociated with FM or a Quad Core CPU

The symptom of the problem seems to be whats causing the black screens and lags, particularly if it black screens when loading up other games.

Personally I'm not a lover of Vista but there are plenty of people here using Vista and quad cores and are very happy. I think you've got another problem. Has this started since you started oc'ing?

Vista will use more Ram. I note you have 4gb ram and you rightly say with 32 bit there is a maximum. I have 32bit Xp and 4gb ram but its only managing to make 3.2 available (I also have a HD4870 1gb graphic card)

How much is your system saying is available?

Despite this you should have more ram, plus you now have a quad core with each individual core processing at a quicker rate than the dual core.

OC can get complicated because you can get bottlenecks if the CPU only is OC'd, depending on how fast you set it

With all OC removed, does it run faster. Strictly speaking it should be faster on the new one.

From what you are describing I believe you have a problem unassociated with FM or a Quad Core CPU

The symptom of the problem seems to be whats causing the black screens and lags, particularly if it black screens when loading up other games.

Personally I'm not a lover of Vista but there are plenty of people here using Vista and quad cores and are very happy. I think you've got another problem. Has this started since you started oc'ing?

My system shows me (well, right-clicking my computer and properties), to my surprise 4GB RAM. But i know it doesn't use all of it.

I read about bottlenecks and all that stuff (i'm a noob when it comes to OCing) so that's why i decided to go back to how it was before.

Speedwise i can't tell the difference. What i've noticed is that the game is always faster when i start it. No matter if it's a new or old game, how many or little leagues i've got running, or how long the computers been on. Not to mention, how many applications i'm running. Can't really remember right now how long it takes before it slows down, but it's not long.

I know i will get black screens when i use other applications at the same time as processing between fixtures on FM. I've learned to get used to it

When i run FM09 only, i can click the continue button and it takes a few seconds before it starts to work. Then after it has started the processing the screen turns black and tells me it's not responding when i click somewhere in the window. Running in windowed mode by the way.

But one thing i have to ask. What do you actually mean by unassociated with FM or Quad?

If there's something i've forgotten to tell you, please let me know.

32 bit systems can only use 3.2gb of RAM. There was an update recently that displayed 4gb of RAM if you have it, but it is physically impossible for a 32bit OS to make use of all 4GB.

Yeah that was the thing. Couldn't remember why it showed 4GB but that was why. But i know it doesn't use all of the 4GB though. Unfortunately

It will make a difference, but obviously if your machine is quick enough to process the matches in time anyway it won't appear quicker.

Obviously you can use the detail level settings to make the game play more matches using the full match engine in which case it will be slower, so you will certainly notice a 4 core benefit more then.

We have had performance analysis done and it shows that FM performance keeps scaling the more cores you add, obviously you need to add more workload over a certain point to keep using all the power (i.e. more full detail matches, low detail matches still get played ont he cores but they play much faster so its less noticeable)

While you're here - at what point will you look at making the game suited for x64? Is that a couple of releases away yet?

I can understand what you say EdL. I always play with minimum detail. Especially now on my game where i have all leagues up and running.

But would the game process more efficiently if i add some details to the game, or will it slow it down? Like - if you have a bunch of carpenters. No point in having them if they don't have the tools to work with.

Hope you get my analogy here lol

Alright. Might experiment with that as well to see if there is any difference. Thanks for that answer EdL. Appreciate it.

32 bit systems can only use 3.2gb of RAM. There was an update recently that displayed 4gb of RAM if you have it, but it is physically impossible for a 32bit OS to make use of all 4GB.

I think you'll find its 3.5 gb of ram. You have confused 32 bit and 3.2gb ram

thanks for all the answers guys, are there plans in place for FM10 to be written for quad core?

Windows addresses 4gb of RAM in total, but includes the memory from your graphics card etc as far as I'm aware.

Its an artificial limit put in by microsoft, 32 bit systems should be able to address more RAM than that.

Windows addresses 4gb of RAM in total, but includes the memory from your graphics card etc as far as I'm aware.

Its an artificial limit put in by microsoft, 32 bit systems should be able to address more RAM than that.

No they can't. Linux can't, OSX can't.

Windows addresses 4gb of RAM in total, but includes the memory from your graphics card etc as far as I'm aware.

Its an artificial limit put in by microsoft, 32 bit systems should be able to address more RAM than that.

1. Its not an artificial limit, its a memory address limitation

2. BIOS, graphic cards etc will use up available RAM

3. Its documented that the most that can be addressed is around 3.5gb. In reality it will vary per PC

However not this thread is about Quad cores, there are loads of threads already about 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems and memory addressing limitations