A new report covering dual-core woes with Far Cry 4 paints a "bleak future" for budget gamers.
Image credit: Polygon
For a while now the dual-core Pentium processors have been a great option for budget gaming, with the Pentium G3220 and newer G3258 Anniversary Edition taking center stage in a number of budget gaming builds. Today, we may be nearing the end of the road for dual-core CPUs entirely as a couple of high-profile games now require a quad-core CPU.
Is the anniversary really…over?
Far Cry 4 won't even open with a dual-core CPU installed, and while the game will load when using dual-core CPU's with hyper-threading enabled (for 4 total "cores") the performance isn't very good. PC World's article points to users "reporting that Far Cry 4 flat-out refuses to work with 'straight' dual-core PCs – chips that don’t use hyperthreading to 'fake' having additional cores." The article references a "black-screen 'failure to launch' bug" being reported by users with these dual-core chips.
This should come as good news for AMD, who has embraced quad-core designs throughout their lineup, including very affordable offerings in the budget space.
Image credit: AMD
AMD offers very good gaming performance with a part like the Athlon X4 760K, which matched the Pentium G3220 in our budget gaming shootout and was neck and neck with the Pentium in our $550 1080p gaming PC article back in April. And the Athlon 760K is now selling for just under $77, close to the current best-selling $70 Pentium.
Ubisoft has made no secret of their new game's hefty system requirements, with an Intel Core i5-750 or AMD Phenom II X4 955 listed as the minimum CPUs supported. Another high-profile new release, Dragon Age: Inquisition, also requires a quad core CPU and cannot be played on dual-core machines.
Image credit: Origin
Looks like the budget gaming landscape is changing. AMD’s position looks very good unless Intel chooses to challenge the under $80 price segment with some true quad-core parts (and their current 4-core CPUs start at more than twice that amount).
I look up on Utube about
I look up on Utube about running Frycry 3 on an i3 4130 with a GTX 650Ti Boost and they had one running on i3 4130 and 650 non Boost at 50-60 not sure what rez, and a G3258 at 4.4GHz, not sure what video card, but set at 1080P running 50-60, I think it’s kind of interesting. (John)
I’m maxing out Planetside
I’m maxing out Planetside with a dual-core 60+ fps.
Battlefield 4..
Trust me, I was shocked also.
But it seems even though high cpu demanding titles seem to chug along just fine with dual-core.
Was going to grab an i5 but honestly.. I don’t need it yet..
I’d rather it run cooler and off less power if I’m already getting awesome performance.
Again. FC4 are dumb dumbs.
It’s just such a good game.
It’s just such a good game. I’m playing it on an a10-6700 with r7-260 1gb. 50-60fps at 720p on low and it’s beautiful, and fun, if the story is a little lacking. You have to go into GamerProfile.xml to allow frame buffering, which is weird, but if mostly fixes the stuttering problem on AMD GPUs.
One thought, if other developers push the tech like ubi is right now, perhaps the high powered race might be back on. Intel was happy with people knowing that in almost every case they were simply a video card away from serious gaming. Perhaps if they wana keep it that way we will see a boost to the power of consumer medium/medium-low cost parts instead of just power efficiency.
I can hope anyways. BACK TO THE GAME!!
This runs fine on my
This runs fine on my bro-in-law’s i3 2120 3.3 Ghz. Although this is hyper-threaded and not a pure dual-core.
I thought these benches were interesting: http://www.techspot.com/review/917-far-cry-4-benchmarks/page5.html
“While not unplayable with and AMD FX processor, those running high-end GPUs stand to lose around 15% performance. Moreover it is becoming a common occurrence to see an Intel Core i3 processor matching or even beating an AMD FX processor in today’s games. As always, gamers are best off with a Core i5 processor as the more expensive Core i7 models offer no real gains.”
what a load of shit…
If you
what a load of shit…
If you play on 3440×1440 or even 3840×2160, you can freely use the latest friggin 80$ 4core athlon with a 290/970 or another gpu appropriate for that res.
That athlon will put out PRECISELY as much frames @ such high resolutions as a 1000$ intel cpu.
Love how CPU benchmarks are usually done @ 480p to show a difference.
Yea um no, try reading
Yea um no, try reading benchmarks before making retarded comments.
Cpu delivered frames become
Cpu delivered frames become more equal across the board the higher resolution you use them on. IF used with a properly strong video card.
This is common knowledge among people who know what they are talking about. Im sorry if you are new to this whole pc enthusiast thing and still rely on popular cpu benchmarks for your info.
Or you know, they’ve just
Or you know, they’ve just never experimented with it themselves before and learn mostly through hands on experience and theres really no reason for you guys to be such dickheads. ; )
lol what, try it and see your
lol what, try it and see your minimum fps well below 20fps, the difference is not as much the avarage or max, as it is in the minimum fps you get, even when i had my fx8350@5,2ghz i could not get swtor playable in any raid or pvp scenario(once action started dropped well below 20fps)once i went to my current pentium g3258@4,7ghz it never drops below 30fps, there is a huge difference between the two, especially in games that rely on ipc
Try to read the comment you
Try to read the comment you are replying to, at least.
Edmond,
I think were you are
Edmond,
I think were you are confused is that while higher resolutions can shift the bottleneck to the GPU it may only happen at such a large resolution that the game is unplayable due to the low frame rate.
The best experience is going to remain a good Intel quad-core for a majority of recent and upcoming games.
It has been like this for
It has been like this for years already in majority of games.
Also sebastian, ryan, who
Also sebastian, ryan, who ever else, there is a FM2+ update on that chip now, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113379&cm_re=AMD_Athlon_X4_860K-_-19-113-379-_-Product
Also sebastian, ryan, who
Also sebastian, ryan, who ever else, there is a FM2+ update on that chip now, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113379&cm_re=AMD_Athlon_X4_860K-_-19-113-379-_-Product
So what about a dual core
So what about a dual core processor with hyper-threading(SMT) the OS is going to see 4 cores, what are the games going to do, query the processor ID, and not run, or warn the user. Or is this just going to be the pre core i series CPUs from Intel, that do not have SMT, or whatever AMD APU with 4 cores, or 2 modules. If I were buying any core i5 series for gaming, I would always go with the quad core i5 non hyper-threaded part, as that SKU has more execution resources, than the dual core i5 SKU with SMT.
One would think that the number of cores would not matter as much as the total processing resources of the early dual core systems, and maybe it’s because the older Intel/other microarchitectures may not have support for the latest SIMD instructions, or other new instructions added to the ISA on newer microarchitectures. And what about AMD’s version of HSA, in the next generation Carrizo, and AMD’s implementation of HSA, and the HSA foundation standards, where the capabilities of offloading to the GPU, computational tasks for gaming that would normally be done on the CPU exists, how is a CPU core count going to determine actual gaming ability. The gaming companies need to provide lists of recommended CPU/SOC SKUs, or at least say any processor with more power than [Certain CPU/SOC of: make, model, year], or they need to provide some standard subjective performance metric that is based on some industry standard benchmark, that no one can game the benchmark/rating system with, to tell the user if they may not be able to run the game on the hardware. Those Intel anniversary editions dual cores may do just fine, and maybe the gaming companies need to say that such a game needs at least 4 processor threads, or 4 physical cores (without HyperThreading/SMT) for the gaming engine to function at a reasonable capacity to play the game.
I will not even look at any Intel product less than a quad core i7, if just to be able to handle the windows OS bloat, and not affect the gaming/whatever rendering running on whatever processor’s core/processor’s thread(SMT enabled systems). Really its the OS’s and the drivers/HALs job to present the software to the hardware in a form that can be executed, but without a standardized set of OS/drivers it appears that true parallel/HSA processing is going to be an up hill battle. I like what AMD is doing with their version of HSA, and the HSA foundation, but until all that HSA awareness is baked into the OSs, it’s going to be hard to tell just what one game may, or may not need CPU/SOC wise to actually play the game. Everyone already knows that more games are starting to utilize more processor’s Cores/threads, as the gaming engine’s SDKs are all multiprocessor/multi-processor threading aware.
I’m starting to see what all that excitement is around Soft Machines virtual cores technology, if all the worry about processor threading/parallel processing can be pushed down into the hardware, and abstracted away from the software, the wait for the software to always catch up to the hardware may become a thing of the past, along with the wasted execution resources on the current Harvard architecture/modified Harvard architecture CPUs/SOCs. I hope AMD licenses this virtual cores technology, it appears to be up for licensing, like ARM, and so many other CPU/GPU IP.
WTF. wasn’t farcry 4 the game
WTF. wasn’t farcry 4 the game that used core 3 on 100% and the rest of the cores at nearly 0%?
when they didnt optimize the game for multicore CPUs why would they require them?
Don’t understand me wrong I love to see dual cores kicked out, but first get your multicore optimization right….
no
core 3 runs high but still
no
core 3 runs high but still uses all others cores equally
if you don’t know hwat you
if you don’t know hwat you talk about and have not tested it for your self, then stop defending ubisoft for makening everyone buy a so called 64 bit game with redicules min requirements, for a bloody 32 bit single core game.
let me give you some hints here, incase you have not noticed it.
1st win_32 folder contains actual data to the game it self, mostly the graphics, if it supposed to be 64 bit then wy the win_32 refference folder name.
2nd the game is installed in the Program files (x86) folder, a clear sign it is a 32 bit progam(it is 64 bit exe file, but i come to that later), if it would be a actual 64 bit game it would go to the Program files (without the 86).
3rd while exploring and examening the 64 bit exe files, i noticed there was a second forced pe refference in there, judging from that code it is a 32 pe refference to continue loading the nessary files who are all 32 bit.
4rd Every thing this game does shows that it is a bloody 32 bit game, all dependencies it loads or uses are all 32 bit dll and additiional data code in 32 bit.
Naming a file or dll with a 64 in it does not mean it is actualy 64 bit, anaylzed those files to, and they all are 32 bit.
5th it uses the old far cry 2 engine, wich is again 32 bit, not judging about the age of that engine, they have adjusted some things in there but again all 32 bit code.
6th Because this game is actualy 32 bit, and they tried to optimize it for a 64 bit machine and code, where they failed big time, they where forced to use the old single core function RDTSC, and forced it to use a single core(inthis case froced to core3) with a even more bigger scam to demmand a min req of 4 cores, to hide their misstakes.
If they would not use this RDTSC single core operation, they would have frame drops, lags, freezes, huge glitches and slow motion effects in the game, deu to the optimization on their part, on their 32 bit game.
Don’t belive me try ising ida pro, pe explorer,Dependency Walker, to check what the progam needs to run and some other program analyzers.
UBISOFT could not even tweak and optimize a 32 bit application, let alone program and optimize it on 64 bit, and tried to get away with it by obscuring it with fake file naming that look like a 64 bit dll or addons on the ouside but are 32 bit on the inside, and hide their 32 bit exe, in a 64 bit exe file.
Ubisoft SHAME ON YOU, do you realy think we would not notice it, REALY, i’m not the only one who saw this and they are also examening your game code!!!!
One aditional remark, once
One aditional remark, once the game actualy runs, you can change the forced core settings to 2 cores, without any problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAzBJnkqZDw
I’m going to check this
I’m going to check this tonight. This would violate all good programming practices, and frankly, would say a lot about their studio.
Well we are a step further
Well we are a step further now, with extreme injector you can force this game to a dual core system, and run it verry well, i am even running it maxed out appart from the anitaliasing parts i use HABO+ and MSAA, settings in there, and runs with 30 to 50 frames a second on a deual core x2 64 athlon 6000+.
Hell i can even tun this game on 1440p and 2160 p resolutions, having anitaliasing all dessables and all toher settings lowered one step, and still have a amazing screen and ingame performance.
So in general it works just fine on a dual core system with one core peaking to it max cpu ussage the other runs between 50 and 80 procent.
As i allready told before they forced the game to use one core only the others are just hanging around.
Next test i did, was on a intel ion 4 core 2,6 ghz, runs like a baby, again one core maxed out, all settings maxed out with the obove mentioned settings.
And yes gamerk2 you are ablolutly right that they have violated the good programm practice with this game, and did things in there that are not ok to programmers who wish to have the best optimized software possible, but get scammed by big companies like ubisoft.
I generaly saw this before it is the same with call of duty advanced warfare, i allready saw things in there that also show signs that it is actualy 32 bit code, with wrong file name conventioning refferences, the 64 in dll codes while the code is again 32 bit.
Wonder if windows is actualy 64 bit, and underlaying not realy 32 bit, atleast it makes you think about sertain things that you buy, it made me think about future programming and stop using the unwritten code of conduct there is in place if big companies are allowed to divert from that path.
Personaly i think this should not be possible at all and companies who practice things like that should be explained that it is not ok at all, they should hire people who actualy know how to program and how to tweak their code, and not give up when the going gets tough, but are able to utilize the full performances and name conventioning in the correct way.
Again SHAME ON YOU UBISOFT.
And all because consoles went
And all because consoles went with lots of abysmally slow cores over a couple with decent pedigree.
Thank you, AMD! (and Sony, and Microsoft)
this is stupid, as much as
this is stupid, as much as not having HT imposes a penalty, a 4.5GHz g3258 is fast enough for this games with lower details, if an older i3 is.
the dual cores are capable of playing these games, this is 100% atificial, like the new COD had a hack to work with dual core and later a patch added this functionality… game devs are going crazy…
stupid limitations (if it runs slow, let it run slow, do not give a warning or black screen),
and unfair pricing, I mean on PC they don’t have to pay for retails profit, nor MS/Sony tax (cost of steam is way lower), they spend far less time with specific performance/required optimizations and want us to pay the same price? it should be half the consoles price.
lol so my 7 year old Q6600
lol so my 7 year old Q6600 cpu is still good and my ati5850 gpu still does the job. hehe
I had that CPU and i coupled
I had that CPU and i coupled it with a gtx 760. The experience was pure shit…. could turn up the details in Far Cry 3 but the fps always stayed in the 40s-50s… which is really bad for a perma60hz monitor.
It was horrible, best thing i did was get the cheapest i5 on 1150.
But i suggest you dont upgrade anything right now.
21:9 freesync monitors comming next year q1. Get that and build the cheapest system with a dedicated video card for that.
So buy an FX-8320 instead. It
So buy an FX-8320 instead. It has mid-high performance that’s like that of the 8350 when overclocked, but only for $120, which is just $50 more than the G3258 but without the massive compromise in performance and future-proofness.
if you play mmo’s forget
if you play mmo’s forget about that one right away, the pentium has almost twice the ipc and outperforms that chip in almost any game that’s out there, only game that ran better on my fx 8350 was watch dogs everything else runs better on my pentium
It’s also dead end of
It’s also dead end of evolution while Pentium can be upgraded to i5 or i7 later.
Seems pretty unlikely given
Seems pretty unlikely given Intel has been changing sockets with every generation.
1155 – Sandy Bridge, Ivy
1155 – Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge
1150 – Haswell, Haswell refresh, Broadwell (for Z97/H97 boards).
thats just bs, and probably
thats just bs, and probably the same as with cod advanced warfare, where dual core cpu where coded out of the game, in other words it refused to start saying you dont meet minimum specifications, guess what once people modded the exe to support dual cores i got constant 60fps at max settings, i am more than sure this game in no way need more than 2 cores just to be playable, hell i can even run ACU maxed with my dual core, and yes its oveclocked to 4,7ghz
[deleted]
[deleted]
If your serious, you need
If your serious, you need your fucking head caved in for being a useless troll. 4770k here btw, and I have no fucks to give about this game…
agreed
agreed
You can think about calling
You can think about calling yourself a “god” when you have at least a quad socket, 60 core Xeon or Opteron setup. Not when you have a mainstream desktop CPU from several years ago.
By the way, 5ghz on water is not particularly impressive for a Sandy Bridge chip; many would hit that on high end air cooling.
Stop producing so much sheer
Stop producing so much sheer autism, kiddo.
you are retarded aren’t you?
you are retarded aren’t you?
Says the retarded lamer.
Says the retarded lamer.
I have seen the word
I have seen the word “retarded” in these replies far too many times. You all need help.
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Star Citizen might inspire me
Star Citizen might inspire me to throw more cores into my next rig, ha.
Star Citizen depends on your
Star Citizen depends on your RAM amount and it’s timings much MUCH more than one the number of cores of your CPU or on your video.
To put it out simply: according to the latest specs of Star Citizen you’ll be much better with a low/mid 4-core and a low/mid video card as long as you’ll have at least 16GB of 1333MHz memory with 9-9-9-27 timings, while in all actuality having a 8-core and a top video card won’t do much of a benefit if you’ll have just 8GB of the same memory. According to latest sheets, Star Citizen would easily eat up to 12GB of RAM when maxed out, and that’s just according to it’s 1080p resolution state. Now consider that recently Cloud Imperium announced that Star Citizen would support not only 4K, but also 8K…y-yeaahhh, just get the picture.
Oh yes, I always sport at
Oh yes, I always sport at least 16GB when I’m sitting on a build.
Though I’m sort of thinking into the future. Honestly right now the game runs as fine as it can for anyone.
I’m sort of thinking when it becomes a whole persistent world.
Updates and addons over the next few years, I’m sure it could use an upgrade from the i3. (Though this system is gunna’ sell shortly so… WHATEVZ!)
I also plan on using Cryengine 3 a lot to help the production of Star Citizen if possible, or just the modding community.
I’ll be using all types of tools with savage amounts of number crunching on geographical information to create templates/algorithms for streamlining the creation process of rendering entire unique planets determined by their elemental properties.
AKA, making an entire, beautiful WORLD in a matter of a week, rather months and months.
My goal. >.>
AND AND AAANNNNNNNNDDDDD!
AND AND AAANNNNNNNNDDDDD! the game is incredible!
AND AND AAANNNNNNNNDDDDD!
AND AND AAANNNNNNNNDDDDD! the game is incredible!
I have a gtx 980, get 70fps
I have a gtx 980, get 70fps on average with all settings on ultra…yet I get ridiculous stutter moving through the environment. The problem are the textures, have to drop them to medium to eliminate the stutter. Brand new gtx 980, and I have to play with medium textures in order to have a smooth experience. The fps is the same with ultra textures as it is with medium. Watch dogs, unity, and now far cry 4…texture streaming issues that ruin the gameplay experience, even titan sli users are reporting the same problem.
Ubish** can’t make a game
Ubish** can’t make a game that isn’t broken anymore, look at their own forums and twitter all they do is respond to people not being able to play fc4, having terrible performance/ no coop etc in unity, they don’t deserve a single cent from anyone, and now they are putting in artificial limits like cod did, also the fact that i can play any other game on ultra including unity but can’t even launch this crap, all they did was overhype both of these games especially unity which looks kind of terrible when you look at the character models
Well FC4 need really high
Well FC4 need really high system req. but belive me worth its really amazing game. You can watch here review ;)http://goo.gl/cvqgTW