How do dual core procesors work with games?

im curious becuase my dad got a dual 1.6 si thats 3.2 combined he said. also he got FEAR , Half life 2 and battlefield 2.

the systems requirment lab site says that i cant run any of them unless on minimum settings but i can run them all at full specs at1280x1024 resolution

is this how the dual core works? for instance could i play the world in conflict demo (2.0) requierment?

thanks to all who help, and dont flame me please im not very compter savy i just came off the 360 wagon

First a game must Support Dual-Core.... i mean to know how to use them....like bioshock and stuff.

Ur 1.6 is not combined with other one....in games that dont know what is DC technology they willl use only ur 1.6 core.. only 1

DC combatible will use both...

DC(Dual Core)

Only a few.....VERY few games know how to use DC.

oh ok thanks for the info. does anybody know if world in conflict is?Djmaster214

yea it supports dual core. Pretty much every new game coming out does.

"Ur 1.6 is not combined with other one....in games that dont know what is DC technology they willl use only ur 1.6 core.. only 1

DC combatible will use both..."

what does that mean? if you say dc will use both then wouldnt that be what i originaly said the 3.2? but onl with dc compatible games?

To reitterate: A 1.6Ghz Dual Core processor runs at 1.6Ghz. It does not "run as fast as a 3.2" it runs at 1.6Ghz.

No thats not combined 3.2. 1.6GHz is a SPEED. that's like saying there's 2 cars each going at 200Km/h and then saying 200+200=400Km/hDarkRecruit

This is a good example. Another is, think of Trucks pulling trailers. If two trucks are going, lets say 16 mph, pulling the same trailer, they are more effeicently pulling the trailer and its combined weight, but both are still only going 16mph.

you do not combine the cores. its all done in cycles, even if there are two, they are still only working at 16 billion cycles a second, but syncronized to be more effeicent (especially with large amounts of data)

and how that works in games is they implement 'threads' which pretty much designates data to core 0 or core 1.

Thats not my area though. You should try googling for more information, you can find layouts of different core architecture and stuff.

What i can say is if u want to play games in future u should have a DC procesor...BEST CHOICE.........till quad-core will pop out :P

Well long time till then...

What i can say is if u want to play games in future u should have a DC procesor...BEST CHOICE.........till quad-core will pop out :P

Well long time till then...

xsqmko

Well I still consider the Q6600 to be the best bet of current CPUs for a great gaming PC. If you OC the chip, it blows the clothes off the ladies.

The improvement comes when programmers code their games to take advantage of the 2nd processor. Then they can divide tasks between them. It's like having one person building a house. Alone he'll take forever, but if you now add a 2nd person they can divide the work and it'll take half as long. This is a rather simplified analogy. You'll never get full division of labor because at some point the 2 cores have to coordinate their work and share resources. It's still much faster than having a single core though. But it only works if the program takes advantage of the 2nd core. Otherwise your program would run just as fast as a 1.6GHz single core machine.

Btw....this kind of programming is much harder to do.

What everyone is trying to say is Duel core is only supported by few/new games, and the old games only use 1 core, so the game is using only 1.6Ghz. Now game industry is going into Duel core, but none of them have reached the combined core's peak yet so in a way duel core still needs more work, but i know it will get better.

go to Systemrequirmentslab.com, they have few game and will tell you if you can run a game or not.

Or google is your friend.