so who knows about computers

So I was fucking around on Mass Effect 2 forums cus i cant get the fucker to get past the first load screen.

Reading about single/multi core processors and i have not a CLUE which one i have. I have an Athlon 64 3500+, that is all i know.

there was a forum about single cores not working yet, and a thread about checking ur processor. In device manager/computer, it said "acpi uniprocessor" so then i investigated how to change this, followed these instructions on a whirlpool thread "device manager/ computer/ update driver / select file from list / specify location / then chose multi-processor.

i don't know if ive seriously fucked up my computer or not, but it seems to be working.....faster :| but mass effect 2 still doesnt work lol.

Run something like cpuz and it should tell you. I think.

I am 95% sure that is a single core processor.

Choosing 'multiprocessor' like you did won't do much, as it obviously can't detect anything else. It might slightly mess with how it sends data into the processor, but that's about it.

what the fuck is a dual core cpu anyway, apparently thats going to be the new gaming 'minumum requirement' or some bullshit.....if fallout 3 can run on minimum requirements which are bigger then my computer i dont see why minimum requirements less then my computer are worse lol...

anyway what should i be aiming to upgrade to get dual core blah blah blah. i think new motherboard and new proc perhaps

A CPU is made up of the core and the busses that attach to it, and any included cache.

They started to move to dual-core when they stopped with the Pentium4 range, because they realised you could get more done with two processors on the one chip, than one really fast processor that put out too much heat.

Assuming software is written to use them properly. One of the better advantages is you just have one core for the game you're playing, and one core for windows, so it makes things a little more efficient.

Quad-cores are now becoming standard.

Probably a good bet that fallout3 runs better because you run it at a high res on your pc, and tvs are typically capable of showing a shit res - making the graphics requirements a lot easier.

But yeah, you'd have to upgrade your CPU. Maybe your motherboard. Possibly buy new RAM.

Or a simpler version. Dual core means 2 processors in the one processor case, quad means 4 in the 1 case.

If you are looking to upgrade to dual core, then you'll be likely replacing motherboard, RAM, processor and vid card (I'm imagining yours will be AGP.)

so im running dfi lanpartyUT nf4 ultra-d ATX, socket 939, 4DIMM for dual DDR-400, 2PCI-E x16, 1PCI-E x1, 1PCI-E x4, 2 PCI, 2PATA, 4 SATAII, 1/RAID, USB2.0, 1394, 8CH Audio, DUAL GbE LAN, CMOS Reloaded

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 312MB used, 3626MB available
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 8800 GTS

i dont want to spend much money :(

find me upgrades on ebay lol

ok, so your gf card is fine, but if you wanna go bigger theres alot higher you can go, imo ram needs an upgrade, you prob wont find a 939 socket cpu anymore unless its second hand but i dont KNOW that.

also nich another reason was that as the cores got bigger caching became an issue, because mem has to travel further accross the chip AND transistors which used to cost more than power now cost less than power esspecially in HPC's so yes more heat was one of the major issues, but it wasnt the only one, given there were huge monetary benefits to moving accross to parallel stuff.

Mentioning heat seemed more practical than saying Intel's engineers finally wrested control back from their silly marketing department, and gave up on the game for fastest CPU : p

How much is not much money, Zemph? And, what games do you want to play apart from WoW?

well i have to upgrade to dualcore thats a deffinite but i dont want to spend more then 500ish lol. ill also need more ram i suppose and probably a new motherboard from what im reading...im happy enough with the graphics card, pcpowerplay still gives it a 9/10 :D

$500 should get you something like I'm considering - Gigabyte P55A UD3, Intel i5-750, and 4GB of RAM. MoBo + CPU are probably worth ~400, RAM is ~1-200, depending on how fast you want it and if you want to pay for a premium label.

BAM, quad-core CPU, new motherboard, more RAM>

sweet