Very little idea how a hardware setup like this would work, or if it would work because the dual cpu motherboards I've seen are specified as Server motherboards, and you'd have to use Dual Xeon's which again I have very little knowledge about and if it would work for these purposes.But I guess what I'm asking is would you be able to play FSX with that kind of setup, and would it be able to use both processors to boost FPS, blah blah you've heard these types of things said before.Just wondering if an experiment is needed. I'd be plenty willing to try.

I think that it was Bob Scott that previously used the Skulltrail mobo for FSX. If you do a search of the hardware forums, where this thread also should go, you might find that thread.Edited: I did a simple search of the hardware forum with the key word skulltrail and got 27 hits.

Edited February 28, 201016 yr by UlfB

For any given CPU architecture (Pentium, Core 2, Core i7 etc), at any given speed, the more cores the better (upto, I believe, 256: can't remember where I read that, though).However, the law of diminishing returns applies. Only parts of FSX are coded to take advantage of multiple cores by spawning multiple "threads". Just for the sake of argument, suppose that FSX can spread upto ~20% of its workload across multiple cores (if anyone knows the real number, please jump in). On this basis, with a typical 4-core system, the principal thread might still be doing ~5% of the work which could, potentially, be off-loaded (20% / 4). Adding another 4 cores will halve the ~5% to about ~2.5%. But the principal core is never going to be handling LESS than ~80% of the workload, because no matter how many cores you add, you will never offload more than ~20% of the workload from the principal core. There is a balance to be struck: personally I think 4 cores is about right. But this basic limitation is why a large overclock is usually a more cost-effective way of achieving performance improvements than adding CPUs.I've probably over-simplified this a bit, but it's the way I think about it and I hope it's not too misleading.By the way, I used dual-CPU Xeon systems before multi-core CPUs became common. But these days I am content with a 4-core i7.Tim

By the way, I used dual-CPU Xeon systems before multi-core CPUs became common. But these days I am content with a 4-core i7.

Tim, this was what the question was all about. Did you ever benchmark you dual CPU system and how do these benchmarks compare to your i7 setup?

Ah you know what. I completely meant to put this in the hardware section. Brain fart while on the job.I figured it would be something similar to that tune, noticing mostly 1 core was doing more work than others. It seems like buying a few more 920's and watercooling system to try and push more performance out of this would probably be more cost effective.Until then... back to tweaking and wondering why the hell I can't keep a stable 25 FPS rate above KLAX.Haha

Tim, this was what the question was all about. Did you ever benchmark you dual CPU system and how do these benchmarks compare to your i7 setup?

I went in quick succession from (i) dual Xeon 5160s at 3GHz to (ii) a dual core E8400 o/c'd to ~3.8GHz to (iii) a dual core E8500 o/d'd to ~4.2GHz to (iv) a core i7 975 o/c'd to about 4.4GHz. Each different setup had different RAM and, at about (iii), I went from an 8800Ultra to a 285GTX. So precise comparison would be difficult.I have made various posts at different stages. But my memory is that while FPS went up with the overclock at (ii) and (iii), the "snappiness" of texture loading (ie, blurriness) was less good than at (i). That was unsurprising, because texture-loading is one of the things that benefits from multiple cores. At (iii), I get a good combination of FPS and "snappy" texture loading. Sorry, no benchmarks though.Tim

I went in quick succession from (i) dual Xeon 5160s at 3GHz to (ii) a dual core E8400 o/c'd to ~3.8GHz to (iii) a dual core E8500 o/d'd to ~4.2GHz to (iv) a core i7 975 o/c'd to about 4.4GHz. Each different setup had different RAM and, at about (iii), I went from an 8800Ultra to a 285GTX. So precise comparison would be difficult.I have made various posts at different stages. But my memory is that while FPS went up with the overclock at (ii) and (iii), the "snappiness" of texture loading (ie, blurriness) was less good than at (i). That was unsurprising, because texture-loading is one of the things that benefits from multiple cores. At (iii), I get a good combination of FPS and "snappy" texture loading. Sorry, no benchmarks though.Tim

Thanks for sharing, Tim!Did you use SATA disks with your dual Xeon setup or did you use a faster disk interface?

Until then... back to tweaking and wondering why the hell I can't keep a stable 25 FPS rate above KLAX.Haha

Too high display settings, maybe? I could easily bring my system down on its knees by pushing sliders and AI to the max - No problem :(

Thanks for sharing, Tim!Did you use SATA disks with your dual Xeon setup or did you use a faster disk interface?

For many years, one of my little indulgences has been to use multiple SCSI (and, now, SAS) drives spinning at 15k RPM configured as RAID0 with pretty good controllers. So far as I can recall, these have given more-or-less constant HD latency and throughput with all my machines. However, of course, I cannot absolutely exclude the possibility that variations in the HD setup might account for the different pace of texture loading.Tim

Deleted as misread post!

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