Announcement

**fds** · 21 July 2000, 10:12

For games with the G400 it is not really worth it, you're lucky if you can get everything to work as smooth as with only one CPU.

For general use and other software having a second CPU could come in real handy.

I'm still rebooting to Win98SE and thus using only one CPU for games. Not that any of them except Q3 could really take advantage of a second CPU. And even Q3 only works acceptably with r_smp set to 1 with nvidia's NT/2k drivers.

<style type="text/css">.sgn {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11; color: black;} .sgnlink {text-decoration:none; color: #242472;}.sgnbold {font-weight:bold;}.sgnp3 {font-family: Arial;}</style><hr><div class="sgn">
Supermicro <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/Chassis/sc750.htm">SC750A (CSE-017)</a> chassis, <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/MotherBoards/840/840.htm#Table 2">PIIIDM3</a> motherboard
Intel <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.intel.com/pentiumiii/">Pentium <span class="sgnp3">III</span> 667MHz</a> x2
Matrox <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/mill_g400/home.htm">Millennium <span class="sgnbold">G400 MAX</span></a> -> iiyama <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.iiyama.com/indexy/product2/9017e.htm">VisionMaster Pro 17 MT-9017T</a>
Creative <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.soundblaster.com/products/sbliveplatinum/features.asp">Sound Blaster Live! Platinum</a> -> Cambridge SoundWorks <a class="sgnlink" href="http://americas.creative.com/speakers/desktop-theater-2500/">DTT2500 Digital</a>
Microsoft <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.microsoft.com/mouse/explorer.htm">IntelliMouse Explorer</a> (on USB)
Quantum <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.quantum.com/products/hdd/atlas_IV/atlas_IV_overview.htm">Atlas <span class="sgnp3">IV</span> 9 WLS</a>, <a href="http://www.quantum.com/products/hdd/fireball_lct/fireball_lct_overview.htm" class="sgnlink">Fireball lct08 26, 17</a>, WD Caviar <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.wdc.com/products/non-current/drives/ac420400.html">AC420400D</a>
Pioneer <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.pioneerusa.com/dvd_single.html#DVD103/113">DVD-303S</a>
ZyXEL <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.zyxel.com/html/product/ta/lcds.html">omni.net LCD Plus</a> (on COM1)
TV Tuner card with Conexant Bt848</div></font>

**Grail** · 21 July 2000, 23:36

Thx for the info fds. What I was really asking was how the Win2K drivers perform(are they still buggy?) in SMP. I am not looking for a boost in my games.

------------------
Tyan Thunder 100 1836 DLU (BX version) BIOS V. 1.18
Intel Pentium3 550
128 PC100 RAM
Matrox Millennium G400 MAX
SoundBlaster Live! Value
3COM FastEtherlink XL (3C905B-TX)
Hauppauge WinTV-Radio
Pioneer DVD 303S
Zip100 Internal
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer
Microsoft Natural Elite Keyboard
20.4 gig IBM Deskstar 75GXP HD
6.4 gig Western Digital HD
Sennheiser HD 570 Headphones

[This message has been edited by Grail (edited 22 July 2000).]

**shaqdaddy** · 22 July 2000, 00:39

dont go for the duel cpu stuff!!!

doesn't matter how great it sounds... there's virtually no proggie that really uses two cpu's at the same time. so most of the time you will get stuck at the dreaded 50% cpu utilization... it's better to actually save up, sell ya current one and just buy a faster one...

**Minstrel** · 22 July 2000, 10:34

The truth is that, for gaming, it is more worthwhile to spend your money to get a single fast cpu than 2 slower ones. In Quake 3, for instance, you only get a few FPS advantage using r_smp 1 at best, using low resolutions, and at worst, r_smp 1 is much slower than r_smp 0.

The drivers are less buggy, meaning that big problems don't really occur any more, but they're not perfect. They're not terribly unstable, but they don't always give you any benefit from a second cpu.

Bottom line: for gaming, SMP is not worth it.

**fds** · 22 July 2000, 12:38

Now I have been using dual CPUs since Pentium and would never go back to a single processor machine again for my main PC.

But this has nothing to do with games and most of any other software. Especially on a G400 with drivers in the state they are. On an NVIDIA card according to what I read you could actually get a performance increase with dual CPUs in Q3. Not a decrease as it is often the case with the G400.

Speaking of problems it is hard to decide whether some crash is caused by SMP or has nothing to do with it and would misbehave just the same on a single processor machine.
I can't bother to test that myself, I'll just reboot to Win98SE for gaming and that's it.

Often something works fine on one SMP machine but fails on another. How good the G400's also drivers won't matter much if some other hardware part has badly written drivers.

Take the SB Live! for example. Creative's forums are full of people crying about SMP problems. I for one have everything working nicely except for many of the games. Is that a problem because of the game or Creative's driver or whatever... I'll just keep on trying the driver updates as they are released and if they aren't better there's Win98SE only a reboot away.

So all in all obviously upgrading to a single 1 GHz CPU will make games a lot faster than putting another 500 MHz processor into a machine which already had one. And you won't run into SMP related problems.

But if you can just get your hands on a second CPU real cheap I say why not.

As for the G400's W2k drivers games seem to work OK for me it's only the fact that they are still noticeably slower than in Win98SE and sound problems etc which keep me rebooting... This should be the same with a single CPU as well.

The newest W2k beta drivers kept rebooting my system every 30 mins so I put the old release drivers back which don't do that.

Then you might want to try other operating systems.

Linux' SMP support is just weak.

BeOS is rather impressive, as is most other parts of the system. Without any real games and no 3D acceleration on the G400 it isn't really worth much currently.

**Chucky Cheese** · 23 July 2000, 11:29

Grail,

the first thing you should be aware of is that your "second" cpu should be of the same family and stepping as the other one...just to side-step any possibility of problems.

since gaming isn't an issue for you i won't discuss any of the MINOR known problems i see while running q3,ut and sof. all are very playable!!

as far as "utilizing" both cpus', you can always set "processor affinity" with task manager. it is single session though, but easy enough to setup. there is even a utility i've seen that will make the affinity permanent.

when/if you get your second processor, get a bigger power supply...don't fall for the "300 watt should be good enough" rationale, get a 400 watt ps. this becomes important when switching cards like the matrox into 3d mode.

the matrox drivers for win2k are stable on my machine. i'm using the certified drivers for my max because i'm just like that. i like the fact that ms has looked them over.

here are my specs;

Motherboard: AMI MegaRUM II, dual 600Mhz Pentium III processors (installed), each with a 32/512 Cache configuration. 1 GB of PC100(CAS2), 8ns memory. Symbios Logic 53C896 U2W SCSI controllers. Intel 443GX Xeon chipset.

SCSI I/O:

Channel 1(LVD/U2): 4 Seagate LVD Cheetah 18LP, ST39103LW Ultra2 Wide SCSI-3 hard Drives, each with 1024k cache.

Channel 2(SE): JAZ 2GB internal, Plex-Writer 8/20, Pioneer DVD-303s ultra-scsi DVD reader and 2 UltraPlex-Wide 17/40 speed CD-ROM drives.

USB: USB Zip Drive, Epson Stylus Scan 2500, Intellimouse Explorer and 3com US Robotics 56K Voice Faxmodem Pro

Networking: 3Com 3Cr990-TX-95 PCI 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller.

Video: Matrox G400 Max with Dual Head. The primary display is a Panasonic PanaSync E21, .25-dot pitch, 20" viewable; the secondary display is a Samsung 17" Flat Panel Display(.264mm pitch) model 770TFT.

Multi-media: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live PCI Bus Mastering sound card. Speaker system is the Cambridge Works FPS2000 Digital speaker system.

...yes..i'm using a 400 watt ps!

this thing is always up and i'm running nothing but win2k(..i reboot at least once a week as a "best practice" exercise). i ripped win98se off of this system after seeing win2k run the above mentioned games. all my other software is new enough that win2k had no problems with it.

i think that it is worth it!!

chucky

**Mr. Cold** · 23 July 2000, 13:50

Well, the beta 5.10 drivers seem to work fine on my G400 MAX w/ ACPI Multiprocessor kernel.

But you also have to factor in SOUND. Now, the big sound card today is the Sound Blaster Live!, which uses a driver package called "Live!Ware". The current Live!Ware (3.0) has serious problems with SMP that make it crackle and generally unusable for games. So I recommend just dual-booting Windows ME and Windows 2000 Professional for the time being..

Maybe in a few months we'll be able to go FULL FORCE with a single OS (win2k pro), but for now it seems most people with dual-proc systems need to dual-boot Win9x or WinME.

That's actually pretty sad, because rebooting all the time just to play a silly little game is pretty time consuming.

**Chucky Cheese** · 23 July 2000, 16:54

Mr. Cold,

i haven't experienced that problem with my live card(..i have the original live, the one with the i/o card) in any of the above mentioned games! i know win2k won't run every game, but so far it has run the ones i'm inclined to play...i did have to tighten the latency values in the bios a bit to fix a problem in all three games concerning weapons fire, but after that, all is well.

my system is plugged into a 1400 VA battery, could that be the reason? i did get tired of dual-booting, that's when i decided to try them in win2k...i don't really care about frame rate as long as the game is playable @1024 x 768 16 bit, i'm happy.

with the certified drivers i can now play all thase games in a dual-processor boot up, i couldn't do that before and had to boot win2k up on 1 processor(..so i was still rebooting). my system is not acpi compliant so i am running the standard MP HAL. what is nice is that when i start a game my secondary monitor goes into power saving mode while i'm playing, the game plays on my 21", when i exit, the desktop recovers back to 2560 x 1024 perfectly.

chucky

**Grail** · 23 July 2000, 22:32

Chucky: Daaaaamn!!(Nice system) I don't think I would need to get a 400W PS. =) I don't have to worry about that many SCSI devices....
Oh yeah, I am asking right now because I know I can get a second CPU with same stepping and Mhz from work at a sweet price(that includes a Golden Orb cooler). Also, I am pretty sure that I cannot get another P3 550 later on when I am "sure that I will use it to it's fullest.."

Games are somewhat of an issue with me, but not big enough that I won't turn away the possiblity of getting more power(yeah, yeah, I am a power freak.. ). Besides, I am currently more focused on work than gaming.
What type of problems am I looking at if I do the jump to 2 CPU's?

P.S. I will be adding 128 megs of RAM at a later date... After that, G800 should be out sometime after that(I can hope can't I? =)). Maybe then I will be interested in SCSI CD Burners(Plextor's latest 12x SCSI drive comes to mind...).

------------------
Tyan Thunder 100 1836 DLU (BX version) BIOS V. 1.18
Intel Pentium3 550
128 PC100 RAM
Matrox Millennium G400 MAX
SoundBlaster Live! Value
3COM FastEtherlink XL (3C905B-TX)
Hauppauge WinTV-Radio
Pioneer DVD 303S
Zip100 Internal
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer
Microsoft Natural Elite Keyboard
20.4 gig IBM Deskstar 75GXP HD
6.4 gig Western Digital HD
Sennheiser HD 570 Headphones

Announcement

Is it worth it to go Dual CPU's with MAX and Win2K yet?

Is it worth it to go Dual CPU's with MAX and Win2K yet?

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