Processor

What is the purpose of the processor in gaming, waht ghz is enough to play most games? Games like Battlefield 2 say it requires 2.5ghz procesoor but ive seen people play on a 1.6ghz dual core procesoor how is that?

 

each new generation of processors is more efficient at operations / clock cycle.

that means a pentium 4 at 2.5ghz isn't as good as a pentium m at 2.5 ghz. more recently, the core duo and core 2 duo processors are even more efficient per clock.

combine that with the fact that they are basically two processors bolted together - where each one is still better than a pentium 4.

game requirements give you a clock speed, but they always mean it in terms of a pentium 4 / athlon xp processor. that means a pentium 4 2.5 ghz, athlon xp 2500+, or "better".

a core 2 "solo" running at 2.5 ghz would probably still beat out that pentium 4, maybe its twice as fast.

core 2 duo at 2.5ghz? maybe 3 or 4 times as fast.

thats whats going on, in a nutshell.

 

Because clock-speed is not everything anymore...not even close.

 

But whats the purpose of a faster processor in gaming?

 

in the notebook world, you won't need faster than 2.0 GHz, because that's about where the Geforce 8600GT maxes out... (speaking in 15" laptops)...

 

I know about that but what does the processor do in gaming?

 

the processor does a ton of stuff.

basically- your gpu alone can't draw anything. a bunch of the calculations of "what to draw and how to draw it" are done on the processor. most of the processor function is rendering related calculations. that is the most taxing function of the cpu in games.

artificial intelligence is also done on the cpu. depending on the complexity, it can be almost nothing to your cpu, or it can be very taxing.

physics calculations are mostly done on the cpu. it depends from game to game because different programs implement physics differently, and different games use different physics engines, which each have varying degrees of intensity and realism.

you can't get a 1.5 ghz pentium 4 and match it with a new midrange or high end 8 series gpu and expect good performance.

however, any reasonably clocked core duo or core 2 duo will be fine.


also- its important to note that buying a laptop with a good gpu that barely makes the minimum cpu requirement for new games is not a good idea. for one- your performance will suffer - your gpu will be waiting on your cpu, and also as new games come out the requirements go up steadily.

 

Does all kinds of data and problem processing that is unrelated to the graphics area (as this is done by the GPU), such as AI, saving, physics, etc...

 

What is a adequete core 2 duo prsoccersor speed for gaming now and for gaming in 3 years?

 

It enables the computer to "process" faster. The bigger that # the faster your computer can compute data. Although there is a point where a higher processor is not needed because the rest of the hardware is already maxed out. 2.0GHz is where the 8600GT maxes out? Thought it was a little higher.

 

What is a adequete core 2 duo processor speed for gaming now and 3 years later?

 

theres not going to be a huge difference between 2.0 ghz and 2.4 ghz core 2 duo in gaming performance, if the gpu is the bottleneck. this is pretty much always going to be the case, because you are going to tend to increase your resolution and settings until the you have a balance of framerate and visuals.

when you increase the resolution and visual settings, you tax the cpu a little bit more, but you also massively increase the stress on the gpu.

future games, crysis and beyond, are up in the air, and if you decide to do something crazy like play battlefield 1942 with like 64 bots or something i have heard that will bring some cpu's down to the ground.

the big deal isn't whether or not it will increase performance, but whether or not it will increase performance in some meaningful way that merits an upgrade.

i would recommend a 2.0ghz core 2 duo for a gaming laptop.

 

I mean will a 1.6ghz suit my needs

 

yeah it will be fine, if its a core 2 duo 1.6 ghz, sure.

 

Quick question, I have a turion AMD 2.0ghz, now is this processor obsolete already?? and how fast is this compare to others?