Let me guess: BtS is not multithreaded, right?

[Solver]

GalCiv is multi-threaded for the AI. If you have a dual-core, then during your turn the AI runs most of its calculations, like Kuci says. Multithreaded, then, in the sense that this decision-making runs on a separate thread while you play your turn. Then when you actually end the turn, it only adjusts its decisions to compensate for your actions (such as troop movement), resulting in fast turn times. Fast is an underestimation, in fact - I have never had any waiting time at all in GalCiv2 since the feature was introduced. Absolutely brilliant.

The Civ4 engine is probably partially multithreaded for graphics or something - Oblivion runs on the same engine, and I know it benefits massively from dual-core. Granted, some features there are Oblivion-only, but there must be something in the underlying engine as well.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dale


I got a AMD Atholon 64 X2 which is dual core.

The AMD 3800 has two versions, one's dual-core, one's not.

[joncnunn]

At the very least, having the duel core will allow Windows Vista to devote 100% of one processor to Civ IV (any version) and have the other processor handle running Vista itself along with just about any combination of background processes you might be running.

Your duel processor certiantely isn't going to perform worse than a single core at the same clock speed would.

[Underseer]

Originally posted by joncnunn
At the very least, having the duel core will allow Windows Vista to devote 100% of one processor to Civ IV (any version) and have the other processor handle running Vista itself along with just about any combination of background processes you might be running.

Your duel processor certiantely isn't going to perform worse than a single core at the same clock speed would.

Erm, dual core, unless you plan to challenge one of your cores to a fight or something.

And yeah, that's what I assume happens. As I mentioned earlier, the performance boost was more than I was expecting.

We have a number of claims here that Civ 4 does indeed run in more than one thread, which is definitely not what folks told me over at CivFanatics. Can anyone cite a specific statement from a game developer on this issue so we can clear this up?

[LDiCesare]

He said duel core having in mind each ai running on one core and fighting the other.
There's always a graphics thread for the animations to run on and one for the player's control, so there are at least two threads in the game.

[Nor Me]

Well I'm running Warlords on Windows XP on a 1.66GHz Core Duo at this moment. I've got one of those little CPU utilisation meters in the system tray, largely so I know when it'll be my turn. So I can tell you that the second core isn't doing any heavy lifting while the first is used 100%.

Despite that, for some reason the XP patch Dale linked to here seems to have reduced end turn times considerably.

Dale, I don't know where you were talking about so if you could share any other details with us mere mortals, I'd be more than grateful.

[ben04]

We have a number of claims here that Civ 4 does indeed run in more than one thread, which is definitely not what folks told me over at CivFanatics. Can anyone cite a specific statement from a game developer on this issue so we can clear this up?

You can always look into the taskmanager to see how many threads a process possesses. Civ4 Warlords has as far as I can see 9 threads. A VC application normally starts with 1 thread. This means Civ4 has created 8 threads. I can't tell for what they are used or if they are used at all.

[Dale]

Originally posted by Nor Me
Dale, I don't know where you were talking about so if you could share any other details with us mere mortals, I'd be more than grateful.

If you mean the "other forum" I pointed Solver to, then I can't give you any details. It was a private forum for a small group of folks.

But I knew of the fix due to being in IT myself and having to use it at work for the dual-corers.