My dual CPUs are both at 100% in one application I use Cas, XSI7: and that application can use four cores or more also at 100%. It eats cores for breakfast

Faster dual core would be one upgrade for me (on a 6700 2.66GHz) but quad core games are just around the corner so I'm still in the er, consultation phase

Ming

Intel seems to have plans for lauching Core i7 based dual cores in Q2-Q3 2009 , it may be a killer in flight sims , and cheaper then quad cores 920,940 and 965.

I love how you respond often on this board, it really is a great thing. % months is not the end of the world, or too horrible, but this summer there was faint hope it might squeeze out by Christmas. Sigh, one more great reason to look forward to spring. I hope your hunt for a U.S. publisher goes well.

The hunt is on, cross yer fingers

My understanding from following the developer's input to Microsoft Flight SImulator 10 (FSX) is that they explicitly designed it to take advantage of multiple cores. Thus, more cores = faster performance. It doesn't scale directly (i.e., double cores doesn't equal double performance) but it does improve performance. They said quite catagorically, "the more cores the better."

It all comes down to whether it is programmed in a multi-threaded manner. If it is, particularly if it spins off a large number of threads and each thread does significant work, then yes it will improve performance markedly to have multiple cores because each of those cores can be running a different thread at the same time - basically multi-tasking within a single programme. On a single core system a multi-threaded programme actually operates by having the CPU manically hop between threads doing a little bit of work on this one, then a little bit of work on that one, so it can actually increases the overhead on the CPU as it has to switch threads and balance its work appropriately across the different threads.

Writing multi-threaded programmes is significantly harder than writing single threaded ones, particularly when you need to share state between the threads - very easy to get hard to diagnose problems such as deadlocks or race conditions. So traditionally developers have steered clear of it. But with it proving now much easier to provide multiple cores than to speed up a single core dramatically, that's going to be changing.

Flight-sims are quite a good candidate for multi-threading; you could, for instance, have a thread per AI pilot making decisions for the pilot, or a thread per plane calculating its flight model. Or just have a simpler model of a thread responsible for all AI and a different thread responsible for all FM.

One CPU can do all the physics routines like a programmable er, physics chip

Then an object passes its properties to the CPU and very speedily the CPU returns the new value of all the object's variables

Your plane sends its state, its position and velocity, its profile for drag, the friction coefficient of all the surfaces. No wait those are constants. No wait2 the coefficients will change at different temperatures probably. Well spotted Pike

The physics-dedicated core now returns the updated properties: new position, airspeed and so on

How does this speed things up. While the physics core is working out the updated values of all the input variables (and stored as constants etc) the 'main' core can be doing something else, maybe even in memory that otherwise would be used for those physics routines, tables. Two times the win

Atmospheric/fluid physics is just physics so imagine how faithful the flight model would be. Given the allegedly correct input data and opening cans of worms, the rest we will have to find out by experiment in the wind tunnel. Maybe we can licence Oleg's virtual wind tunnel, he must have one "Yes you do have the Oleginator Mark Four wind tunnel Ming. It's onboard the third core"

Third Core hmm

http://www.thirdcore.com/

Undercover assassination bureau? Nah it couldn't be could it they look too polished and perky

Ming

Sorry Viks - I posted before i saw your reply saying your sim was suited for quad cores.
I guess things in puters are running faster than I realised. Good news for the Quadders

Thank you for thinking this way and not pushing specs to newest only!
It is how I will be able to run at all.
Most likely I will be buying ROF before upgrade, I think support the makers is #1 priority
and believe those first market figures will be crucial to percents and future.
It is enlightened self-interest only though. You must stay around, how else to get more
flyables? Without those my hardware investment loses worth to me! I am that greedy, yes.

I do wonder how/if will there come a time with early WWI planes, so many types total and
Zeppelins maybe? We haven't had Zeppelins since Red Baron original. Is too much?