Dual Core (X2) with FS computer w/utilities

[Guest bobvisser]

Hi all,First of all, sorry for my poor english.I'm in proces of buying some new hardware for my home build cockpit (Project Magenta).I've red all comment about single and dual core AMD's.But on mine FS machine I need to run some 3party software with FS together (simultaniously). For eg Project Magenta advise me to run the MCP software on the FS machine itself. Also my new TQ needs FSRouter, also adviceable to run on the FS machine itself. All other software that I can run on other machines to gain FPS on my main FS machine will be done.So knowing this...is it better to buy a dual core AMD for mine main FS machine ?Can I assign processes to a core (processor) ?How many processors do you see with a X2 in the task manager ?Does AMD use hyper threating ?Thanks all in advance,Bob.

[Guest Edwin]

Hi Bob,Let me answer the easy questions first:No, AMD does not use HyperThreading. Not that HT really helps much anyway.With an X2 (4800+), I see two processors in Task Manager.Yes, you can assign processes to a core.Now the difficult question:Jaap asked me a while back to run tests on whether assigning the affinity of processes to specific cores would help improve FS9 performance. I haven't run any formal tests but I certainly didn't feel any difference in the smoothness of the system by assigning processes to specific cores. If there was a performance gain, it wasn't noticeable.Hope this helps.Edwin

[Guest bobvisser]

Edwin,Your input here is huge, thanks for your replay. All your comments are very valuable and notice for me to decide the best buy.You qouted: "With an X2 (4800+), I see two processors in Task Manager."Does a single core show one processor ?HyperThreading kills my current performance on my intel board. The CPU(0) run FS and is totally ocupied (50%) and limits down the performance of my video board (6800 ultra something). So mine idea is that it slow down the video performance by cutting my processor in virtual two, is that a correct assumption ?With intel you can also decide the amount of L2 cache...do have options with AMD processors as well ? Does AMD have cache I can configure ? Are there performance issues with it ?Thanks alot Edwin for all your help !Regards,Bob

[Guest Rayed]

Hyperhreading -> one processor trying to act as 2. Usually it doesn't work with anything more complicated than web browser and some data processing appliactions.Mutlicore -> two or more processors in one chip (they share memory bus tho, but this is the case in physical multiprocessor boards as well)It's like you would have 2 physical processors on board. As for cache options, check AMD page, different version of 4xxx have different cache sizes. 4800 has the biggest cache. I don't believe cache size would have significant impact of performace of FS9 and utilities, but hmm, I might not be right..As for assigning specific processor (core) to a process, the system is usually better judge - I'd not force it, but if you really want there is an option, you can d/l untility which will set it per program/process permamemntly.If you run a lot of utilities in the background while running FS9, dual core will give you significant performance boost. Also your system will be much more responsible, if you never worked on dual cpu before you won't believe how easy will be to alt TAB out of FS and any other program for that matter. You can forget about utiliies like EndItAll, etc.. and killing "unwanted" tasks before you run FS, just because they will run on different processor than FS.At the moment AMD multicore technology is far superior to Intel, for many reasons, one of them is memory management and access unit on chip on AMD procs. Things might change in the future, but I don't think that will be near future.One more thing. If you buy dual core system, make sure to get 2 GB of RAM to take full advantage of it. You can go 4 Gigs on Win 64, but it does not make sense if you use your comp only for FS :).