hi all,now that FSX supports multicore cpu's i am wondering if i should upgrade to a dual core cpu (i have a 939 socket mainboard so i can't go for a quad core...).i am currently running on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ cpu and nowadays you can buy an AMD dual core for less than $150 (like an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2.2 GHz), so i wonder if someone else has done a similar upgrade in the past and can tell me how much of a performance increase i could expect. maybe a 5 fps average increase? or less?thank you!my specs are the above cpu, A8N deluxe, 2GB ram, pci-e 7800GT.

This may disappoint, but I have run a test where I run two then one core with FSX and found that FPS were about the same, despite seeing a lot of activity on the second core in the dual core test. I am still looking for someone else with a multi-core processor (preferably quad) to run my test and verify my results (any takers?) Having said that, the flight experience with two cores seemed to be smoother and the scenery seemed to load quicker, as if the second core is doing a lot of pre-processing for the main FSX thread, but it is really hard to give a quantitative measure of this improvement. Certainly, if you are running any other application in the background, especially external FS addons, then the overall flight experience is much smoother than single core in my experience.Gary

I whole heartedly agree. You wont see any diff in performance. There are many that have done this experiment and seeing no improvement in performance. But still i would go for dual core, because they must get it right eventually. Its new stuff so may take a while for programmers to get optimal performance out of them.AMD X2 64 60002 Gig 800 MHz cas 4 ramNvidia 8800 GTS 320 Meg VideoAsus M2N Mobo2 X 250 Gig Sata Hard drives

While it may be true that the main benefit during flight is smoothness, the load time dropping is almost all due to threading. Load time being faster *is* a performance benefit.

And I just upgraded my video card from an ATI 9700 Pro with 128 Mb RAM to an ATI x1650 Pro with 512 Mb DDR2 with no noticeable increase in performance. Still have the blurries and no fps increase to speak of.FSX is becoming a disappointment to me. What a shame.

>And I just upgraded my video card from an ATI 9700 Pro with>128 Mb RAM to an ATI x1650 Pro with 512 Mb DDR2 with no>noticeable increase in performance. Still have the blurries>and no fps increase to speak of.>FSX is becoming a disappointment to me. What a shame.FS is still largely cpu-bound. In your specific case, your results tell me that something other than your video card is your bottleneck. Alleviate that bottleneck, and your 512 vram card starts having a greater impact on your overall performance.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Based on the comments above upgrading is not the best decsion. Why not wait until Penryn processors are out in 6 months and you can take advantage of a real boost in processor power along with the DX10 patch. Patients is required when it comes to and FSX hardware upgrade...and hopefully in 6 months all of this blurry nonsense will be sorted out.Mark.

Mace, you are right. I'm sure my system has other bottlenecks since it is fairly old and hardly upgradeable. I just thought that I would see some inprovement with a new video card. I currently have a P4 2.8 GHz with only 1 Gb RAM.And Mark, you are right also. I'm just going to have to wait until I can afford a new system.Thanks for your comments.

So I'm shocked it hasn't been mentioned (even by Phil) that the in-flight usage of the second core is used for tile texture generation and autogen.see Phil's post here:http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2007...ork-in-sp1.aspxSince this is work that doesn't directly relate to the speed in which a frame is rendered, obviously the 2nd core provides no FPS boost (at least by default).I did just finally finish a marathon upgrade of my AMD 3500 single to an X2 (OC'd from 2.0 to 2.5... about everything under the sun went wrong in the process, but I'm finally in a good spot). I can tell you that textures to load noticeably better with the dual core, so if blurries are your problem, the a dual core will be a benefit.

>>I did just finally finish a marathon upgrade of my AMD 3500>single to an X2 (OC'd from 2.0 to 2.5... about everything>under the sun went wrong in the process, but I'm finally in a>good spot). I can tell you that textures to load noticeably>better with the dual core, so if blurries are your problem,>the a dual core will be a benefit.>Which X2 did you get?Too bad I don't have an AM2 board. I will just have stay with what I have (which has been a great cpu for me) until I get a Penryn or Barce.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Hi Rhett, I'm also trying to hold on until the Bar

Mace:I got this:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103052If you have memory that can go fast enough, its probably hard to go wrong. I booted Vista all the way up to 2.8 GHz without upping any voltages. 2.5 is where I ended up to have confidence that I was 100% stable, but I think A) it was my memory that was holding me back, not the CPU and :( I'm sure I could have gotten 100% stable faster if I upped voltages, but I wasn't interested in pushing it that hard.Jaap:I wouldn't get too excited about Barcelona. The rumors are not good at all. Personally, I think between the R600 fiasco and Barcelona, AMD won't be able to survive past early next year as an independent company.http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=3006

>>Too bad I don't have an AM2 board. >>>Rhett>>AMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS>A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150>gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb>5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster PraetorianSorry I do not understand, in that the equivalent AM2 processors are not any faster than 939 socket processors.Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

>Sorry I do not understand, in that the equivalent AM2>processors are not any faster than 939 socket processors.I think he's getting at the fact that since the 939 chips have been out of production for a long time, it is very hard to find a higher-end 939 CPU, and if you do it will be very overpriced compared to the AM2 equivalent. About the only reasonable option available to update the CPU in a 939 system is to get one of the cheap, low-end OEM CPUs you can still find and overclock it.

my imac is dual core, at least %1000 percent better than when i run fsx on my pc