quad core vs dual core

[varasku]

Hi there, ill get straight to it, i have just got myself far cry 2 for my pc, here are my specs,

Nvidia geforce gt240 1gb ddr3
4gigs of ram 800mhz
intel pentium D CPU 2.80ghz, (2 cores)
650w psu

Righty, so theres my system, runs cod4 on max settings and gets around 30-40 fps, but i know far cry 2 is a whole different story, so i run far cry 2 on all medium settings, res 1024x768, aa x4, get around 30-40 fps.

Now the question, i think my processor is the weakest link in my system, if i were to upgrade my cpu to a quad core, would i see any performance increase/ be able to put settings to high and res up to around 1280x1024 and maintain that frame rate of 30-40 fps. Thanks in advance!

please no posts saying how rubbish far cry is or anything like that please

Thread moved to relevent forum section.

-Bob

[LeChuckle]

try overclocking your CPU.

[Tim270]

Not really, Your GPU is worse than your CPU I would say, try lowing AA to 0 or 2 and you should see a big FPS boost

Quad's are becoming the better option as more games support all the cores nowadays

[varasku]

but my cpu is 5 years old, and my gpu is actually pretty good for what i paid, just under the performance of a 9600gt, so a quad core will do nothing for the performance? if not, whats the point of anyone getting one?

[Pedz]

increasing your cores would not do much, only in certain games (e.g GTA4, BFBC2 etc.) as these games have been designed towards 4 cores rather than the average 2. Also your cpu is quite old now as its not even a core 2, and the architecture has changed a fair amount, so its not all what has better clock frequencies, a lot of the speed is down to the design of the chip itself. But your main problem is probably the GPU not coping.

Also the point of quad cores is for use in other applications and future proofing, as more developers realise more people have 4 cores as standard more programs will use 4 cores usefully.

[varasku]

how about getting a new dual core cpu thats clocked higher? after reading other sutff, i realise now that games that dont utilize the 4 cores and mabye only use 2 mean the other 2 wont be helping much, but if i get a dual core that has a high frequency on both cores, will that help out?

[Stoic Sentinel]

Well, as Le Chuckle said, you could just overclock if you want higher clock speeds...

[karambaitos]

turn of that AA dude even if you get a new processor turn of that AA it eats up resources like crazy
youll be able to play the game almost all high without the aa

[varasku]

naaaa, i cant live without aa man! also i dont know how and dont really want to overclock my cpu, so a dual core at high speed wont even make a difference, also i would have thought far cry 2 would make use of a quad core no?

[SocketMan]

Not sure you can upgrade to a quad core with the old socket 775 motherboard.
There are more and more games that use/support more then 2 cores,so that would
be a better choice (over a dual core) especially if you plan on playing PR:ArmA2.

[SnipingCoward]

It would be interresting to know which OS you are running.

Vista and Win7 have a tool called "Resource Monitor". Run this while in game and check you what your bottleneck is.
Depending on the OS you will also see better multi-core support. Background tasks that might interfere with the game can reroute their performance requirements to a different core. The more cores you have the more tasks you are usually able to run with out major problem.
The gfx card does not seem like the bottleneck to me. AA definitly is a resource hog. And getting a better CPU might help but this might be at a range of ~5FPS and you will have to install it your self, find the right one that fits your socket etc. Temporarily overclocking your current CPU could help you identify if a CPU upgrade could and how much it would improve your gameplay.
Seeing as your CPU is 5 years old your motherboard is probably even older. This is also a possible bottleneck: the limitations of FSB, NB and maximum clock speeds on that board. (You should post all your components not just ones that come to mind first )

[varasku]

thanks for the reply, but im not sure how to overclock my cpu

[Stoic Sentinel]

Honestly, it's a bit much to explain, but there are a lot of great tuts out there that you can use.
A beginner's guide to overclocking - The Tech Report - Page 1
HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) - Guide v1.6.1 - Intel - Overclocking