Request W2K Info

[Skoonj]

I'm getting a new machine soon, though some parts are still in the air. Maybe some information from those who have been down this road would help me make some choices.

AMD will soon (about one month) release a chipset that allows for dual CPUs. A dual 1Gig machine (two 1 gig chips) is therefore a possibility.

To take advantage of two CPUs I understand I have to use Windows 2000. Fine, IF games like Combat Mission and Falcon 4 will still play on it.

I plan to use a Voodoo5500AGP, and will get 256Megs of RAM.

Now the questions. Has anyone already tried this (Combat Mission on Win2K, and a V5500AGP) successfully, or am I fixing to be a guinea pig? Are there known problems and ways to make it work?

On the other hand, would it be better to forget W2K and dual CPUs and just use WME?

Thanks very much.

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Skoonj

Excelsior, Fathead!

--Jean Shepherd, circa 1956

[Schrullenhaft]

I'm not sure how much of a benefit you'll get out of using a Dual CPU machine. I pretty sure that CM isn't threaded to the point that it can benefit from a Dual CPU setup. Even Win2K doesn't really get much of a boost from a dual processor setup. I believe Quake3 is one of the few games that I'm aware of that benefits from more than one CPU.

As for V5500 and Win2K compatibility with CM. I'm not sure. The latest BETA from 3dfx is dated Sept. 1, 2000 (v. 1.01.01). I haven't seen any references from people on the board regarding the V5500 under Win2K. Hopefully someone is out there running it and can make a comment. I wouldn't be surprised if any of the Win9x issues may still be present in the Win2K drivers (though they do have to be written differently). I suspect that there may be issues with the two video processors and FSAA with CM.

Though the chipset from AMD is new, depending on the motherboard vendor you get it from, there may be some "teething" problems. AGP devices and other things may have problems, etc. So be prepared for some BIOS updates (these problems may not happen, but something new always seems to attract compatibility problems of one sort or another).

[Skoonj]

Thanks for the response. I know Falcon 4 is dual threaded, but few other games are, and probably none which I'm likely to buy. CM probably wouldn't be helped at all by dual CPU's. I guess I'll buy a single CPU system. The motherboards are already out and mature enough not to have problems.

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Skoonj

Excelsior, Fathead!

--Jean Shepherd, circa 1956

[Skoonj]

Well, I have new information that effects much of what I originally posted.

Tomorrow, Monday, AMD will announce a new chipset, the 760. It increases bus speed and also makes use of a new and faster RAM chip, DDR SDRAM. They are also releasing new CPUs to take advantage of the increased capabilities.

One interesting thing to note is that the prices for the new chipsets and RAM will not be much different than what is selling today. Here is the article:

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2645674,00.html

The dual CPU board will not be available until next year, though when next year is not pinned down. I guess the folks at GamePC.com were trying to tell me about this new chipset when we corrsponded via e-mail, though they weren't correct that the dual CPU board will also be available.

In any case, I could order a fine system now. I could order a much more powerful system in perhaps a month. Or I could wait until an unspecified date next year and order a dual CPU system. If the AMD announcement is what I believe it will be, and the prices are not significantly jacked up, I think I will get the one out in about a month.

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Skoonj

Excelsior, Fathead!

--Jean Shepherd, circa 1956

[dima]

True, CM has to use internal multithreading to take advantage of dual CPU's. But even if it does - what's the point ? Having even one 1Ghz Athlon will give you more than enough power. All in all CM isn't really a CPU-hungry game. Yes, framerate while scrolling may be a bit slow ( at least on my Cel 450 GeForce 2) but second CPU won't help here, since rendering is not a multithreaded process (at least in games like CM).

Falcon 4 is another matter - it uses realtime campaign engine in the background so dual CPU's do help a little.

If CM was updated to use DX8, then on cards with T&L we would get faster framarates.

hopefully CM2 will support DX8 so it in fact will be faster than CM.

I am sure Madmatt can correct me if I am wrong.

[This message has been edited by dima (edited 10-29-2000).]

[dima]

On more thing - Win2K is faster and more ( A LOT MORE ) stable than WinME, so even using it with one CPU is better.

[Gravel Tech]

I am in the same boat (just upgraded to 900 MHz Athlon, looking to upgrade OS to W2K for better performance in Falcon4 & CM).

I've recently made my system dual bootable and installed W2K. I already had Win98 installed on a second drive. I must admit that I enjoy the more refined user interface that comes with W2K, but to my surprise I found that CM performace was fairly poor in W2K compaired to running it on Win98. In W2K there is a graphical glitch which is affecting the text font (which is apparently related to some nVidia driver issue), when panning around the frame rate is down right choppy. Bottom line is (in my experience) Combat Mission looks feels and sound better running on Win98.

Although W2K is not designed to be used as a gaming platform I expected the issues to be with getting games installed and running, not poor performance. Still, I see great potential in W2K and when we get the rough edges smoothed out I am sure it will be the platform of choice.

Any tips on fine tuning W2K for CM are greatly appreciated.