Timeline for Why would a program require a specific minimum number of CPU cores?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
44 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 8, 2015 at 23:42 | comment | added | Paul Draper | FYI, SQL Server doesn't (or used to not) run if there isn't a power of two cores (2, 4, 8). Yeah. Seriously. | |
| Jan 8, 2015 at 20:31 | history | protected | gnat | ||
| Jan 8, 2015 at 18:15 | answer | added | Damon | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 8, 2015 at 17:21 | answer | added | reirab | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 8, 2015 at 16:55 | comment | added | Agent_L | Newer nVidia graphic drivers have ridiculously poor performance on dual core machines. Can you validate type of GFX used by people who tried to run it on a dual-core and failed? | |
| S Jan 8, 2015 at 15:00 | history | suggested | Peter Mortensen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Copy edited (e.g. ref. <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ill-intentioned#Adjective>). Added some context. Removed historical information (e.g. ref. <http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/230693> and <http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/266164>).
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| Jan 8, 2015 at 14:30 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 8, 2015 at 15:00 | |||||
| S Jan 8, 2015 at 13:23 | history | edited | Andres F. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
clarified the question title even further
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| S Jan 8, 2015 at 13:23 | history | suggested | Eric | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
clarified the question title even further
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| Jan 8, 2015 at 12:54 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 8, 2015 at 13:23 | |||||
| Jan 8, 2015 at 12:38 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | @Sebb: I think you're onto something: if 4 physical cores does correlate with having more cache then 2 physical/4 logical, then the game could naturally be choking on 2x2 machines without hitting their processing power limits because it's missing cache all the time. The test would be to find a CPU with 2x2 cores and loads of cache, or 4 cores and little cache, and see what happens. | |
| Jan 8, 2015 at 11:44 | comment | added | Basile Starynkevitch | I'm pretty sure an hypothetical single-core TeraHertz (10^12 instructions per second) MMIX would run your thing faster that your quad-core gaming machine. | |
| Jan 8, 2015 at 10:14 | comment | added | Falco | It could also be a marketing decision. If you support low-end CPUs the Game will most likely look very bad on these machines and raise many support questions. If you say in the beginning - the game only runs on 4 Cores, you don't have to answer any support questions for older hardware, and there won't be as many bad reviews complaining about bad performance, since the game won't even start. So there could be an explicit check in the game, where it fails on purpose rather than running badly | |
| Jan 8, 2015 at 4:46 | answer | added | Loren Pechtel | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 22:30 | comment | added | Michael Borgwardt | Funny, I've been playing Dragone Age Inquisition on a first-generation i3 for over 30 hours now, without "massive frame drops". Got a new graphics card for it, though. | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 20:44 | answer | added | user53141 | timeline score: 16 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 20:24 | comment | added | user53141 | Note that "minimum system requirements" are often "minimum system requirements to run with acceptable performance", especially with games. It is very possible that Dragon Age could, in theory, run on a single core box, but if you did so, it would show massive frame drops. So they require this number of cores not to force you to buy hardware, but to avoid quality complaints from users of lower-end hardware. | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 19:57 | comment | added | Sebb | That suggestion may be even more weird than the synchronous threads thing, but maybe Dragon Age is using some very special virtualization features which are only there in quad core cpus (I don't know any through) or need to have some virtualized and therefore splitted memory/execution sections which are only achievable with quad cores / not achievable with [most] dual cores. Coming to mind here is the the requirement for much L1/L2/L3 cache, which is higher in most quad cores as far as I know. | |
| S Jan 7, 2015 at 19:35 | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Add 'implicitly'
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| Jan 7, 2015 at 19:05 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 7, 2015 at 19:35 | |||||
| Jan 7, 2015 at 18:31 | answer | added | Joshua | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 16:17 | answer | added | Blrfl | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 16:01 | answer | added | pjc50 | timeline score: 45 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 15:49 | answer | added | TMN | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 15:28 | comment | added | user50849 | @Reek You should try asking the crazies over on codegolf.stackexchange.com, I'm sure someone can cook up an interesting piece of code for you. ;) | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 14:45 | answer | added | Lawtonfogle | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 13:43 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackProgrammer/status/552822765095768065 | ||
| Jan 7, 2015 at 13:09 | answer | added | dj bazzie wazzie | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 13:03 | comment | added | uylmz | I tried to clear question a bit. Seems like some of my statements make it hard to understand what I'm trying to ask specifically. | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 13:02 | history | edited | uylmz | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
cleared
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| Jan 7, 2015 at 13:01 | comment | added | UldisK | Hmm.. in case of Dragon Age, my first guess would be the same as Phillips. An interesting question then would be - what happens when you run the game on 4 core pc with 2 cores maxed out on something else? | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:56 | answer | added | Philipp | timeline score: 34 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:55 | comment | added | Tommy Andersen | There are different techniques to checking which cpu core a thread is running on, and thereafter comparing between the threads, take a look at the answers to this question: stackoverflow.com/questions/6026896/… I am not entirely certain that this is what you are after though. | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:53 | comment | added | uylmz | @mgoeminne I am sure. Spec requirements does not state a particular CPU model. It just requires 4 cores. Copied from official site: AMD quad core CPU @ 2.5 GHz Intel quad core CPU @ 2.0 GHz | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:51 | comment | added | Simon B | With your edit, it's not entirely clear what you are asking. | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:50 | comment | added | mgoeminne | Are you sure the problem is really and directly related to the number of cores? Maybe the mentioned game is partially based on a feature only (correctly) provided by CPU with at least 4 cores? | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:49 | history | edited | uylmz | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 195 characters in body
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| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:42 | history | edited | uylmz | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 195 characters in body
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| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:36 | comment | added | user7043 | Since the number of cores can be retrieved, it can be compared to N, and if that comparison evaluates to true, the code can do whatever the hell it wants, including but not limited to behaving in ways not advertised. What's your question? | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:32 | history | edited | uylmz | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 232 characters in body
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| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:25 | answer | added | Pieter B | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:19 | comment | added | uylmz | If you read my question carefully you will see they are not asking the same thing. | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:17 | comment | added | Tommy Andersen | This might be a duplicate of stackoverflow.com/questions/150355/… | |
| Jan 7, 2015 at 12:12 | history | asked | uylmz | CC BY-SA 3.0 |