PC Gaming Website

jonski

I have an AMD64 3000 it shows up as a 1700 on the site and says I fail the test for company of heroes , whereas other site report my cpu as a 3000 efective speed and passes the test . No idea how this works but thought I would say it .

Speedway

jonski wrote:

I have an AMD64 3000 it shows up as a 1700 on the site and says I fail the test for company of heroes , whereas other site report my cpu as a 3000 efective speed and passes the test . No idea how this works but thought I would say it .

Jonski here is the entry from your directX diag report

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000 , MMX, 3DNow, ~1.7GHz
Memory: 2560MB RAM

So your Windows DirectX picks your processor up as 1700MHz

jonski

Speedway wrote:

Jonski here is the entry from your directX diag report

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000 , MMX, 3DNow, ~1.7GHz
Memory: 2560MB RAM

So your Windows DirectX picks your processor up as 1700MHz

Indeed , but it is generally accepted that an AMD running at 1700MHz is equivalent to an Intel @ 3000 MHz , so if the min req for a game is a p4 2.8 then my machine should pas the test , but the site says it failed . My tech knowledge is limited at best , my knowledge of how website like yours works , even less so , but ,aybe if it could factor in the way that the AMD's are classified it would give a more accurate pass/fail .

Speedway

jonski wrote:

Indeed , but it is generally accepted that an AMD running at 1700MHz is equivalent to an Intel @ 3000 MHz , so if the min req for a game is a p4 2.8 then my machine should pas the test , but the site says it failed . My tech knowledge is limited at best , my knowledge of how website like yours works , even less so , but ,aybe if it could factor in the way that the AMD's are classified it would give a more accurate pass/fail .

jonski that is in no way accurate. If the CORE CLOCK speed required by a game is 2.8GHz and your AMD has a core clock speed of 1.7GHz then it isn't fast enough.

The reason that people say it is "equivilant" is because AMD don't use a front side bus and have a direct memory link to RAM. But that in no way jumps the clock speed up to 3.0GHz. You can't simply say that the processor's core clock runs at 1.7GHz so then it is actually 3.0GHz like an intel.

jonski

Speedway wrote:

jonski that is in no way accurate. If the CORE CLOCK speed required by a game is 2.8GHz and your AMD has a core clock speed of 1.7GHz then it isn't fast enough.

The reason that people say it is "equivilant" is because AMD don't use a front side bus and have a direct memory link to RAM. But that in no way jumps the clock speed up to 3.0GHz. You can't simply say that the processor's core clock runs at 1.7GHz so then it is actually 3.0GHz like an intel.

I think you might be missing my point , which was , that your website says that my pc does not meet the minimum req to play certain games , when in actual fact it does . This is not an arguement about how intel or AMD classify/describe their cpu's speed . Your site tells anyone with an AMD 3000 not to bother going into gamestop to buy BF2 or Company of Heroes , because they fall way short of the mark .

Just trying to make a helpful suggestion here .

Speedway

No I understand what you are saying and I appreciate the input.

but what I am saying is that Company of Heroes requires a processor with an internal clock speed running at a frequency of 2.0GHz and the AMD does not run at that. So whether or not it is equivilant to a Pentium at 3.0GHz isn't what is being examined. It is that the games needs a certain clock speed (from any CPU) and that the clock speed of that AMD CPU is not above what the company of heroes box says it requires.


for example look at this page - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907884

the line says "A computer that has a 1.4 gigahertz (GHz) processor" therefore yours would be adequate.
but for something that requires a 2.0GHz processor yours would not be adequate regardless of whether or not it is equivilant to a Pentium at 3.0GHz

Matt Simis

Speedway wrote:

but what I am saying is that Company of Heroes requires a processor with an internal clock speed running at a frequency of 2.0GHz and the AMD does not run at that. So whether or not it is equivilant to a Pentium at 3.0GHz isn't what is being examined. It is that the games needs a certain clock speed (from any CPU) and that the clock speed of that AMD CPU is not above what the company of heroes box says it requires.

Wow, you are so far off on that statement, its scary you are actually putting this info out as consumer advise for the last 5 years... :eek:

"Gigahertz" is rating of clock frequency, not a pure and standardised performance metric. Actual Performance is roughly determined by
Frequency X Instructions Per Clock (IPC).

Intel P4s generally have a lower IPC than Athlon CPUs. Therefore a lower clocked Athlon64 is "punching above its weight" compared to a P4.

There is no such thing as a game that requires a specific "clock frequency" (any program that specifies a clock frequency without a CPU type beside it is a victim of poor copytext, nothing more), in this case the game is merely declaring a minimum performance requirement using a well known ball pack product (Intel P4 etc).

AMD products use a performance rating system that unofficially references their CPUs to Intels (yes, I know "officially" they claim they are performance rating compared to their own, old CPUs). Therefore Jonski is completely correct, if a program requires a CPU that performs at the level of a P4 3.0GHz, then an equivalently rated AMD cpu (Athlon 64 3000+ for example) is sufficient and any advise to the contrary is incorrect.

You will run into exactly the same problem comparing Intel Core2Duos to P4s btw, they too have much high IPC than P4s (somewhat higher than Athlons), your test would no doubt sell them short too.



Matt


PS: Site doesnt display correctly in Firefox

Speedway

Matt Simis wrote:

Wow, you are so far off on that statement, its scary you are actually putting this info out as consumer advise for the last 5 years... :eek:

"Gigahertz" is rating of clock frequency, not a pure and standardised performance metric. Actual Performance is roughly determined by
Frequency X Instructions Per Clock (IPC)

That is true yes, PERFORMANCE = frequency and number of instructions performed
BUT as far as i can see if a game has a requirement for a processor with a clock speed of a certain level then a processor should meet that level of clock speed, not performance because I don't ever recall seeing a game that has a performance measure on it related to its actual frequency.

Matt Simis wrote:

Intel P4s generally have a lower IPC than Athlon CPUs. Therefore a lower clocked Athlon64 is "punching above its weight" compared to a P4.

i agree again yes because of the lack of a FSB and using their crossbar controller on some of the x2 and 64 bit models the AMDs can give a higher IPC.

Matt Simis wrote:

There is no such thing as a program that requires a specific "clock frequency".

This is where I disagree. I do understand that yes performance is more than simply clock speed. But if you look at software requirements for games then it is based on clock speed purely.

Matt Simis wrote:

PS: Site doesnt display correctly in Firefox

Yes i know thank you i mentioned that in my first post

aidan_walsh

But if you look at software requirements for games then it is based on clock speed purely.

I think thats really just to give people a well known, advertised standard to work off.

Pretty soon we may be talking about applications in regard to Vista performance points (assuming of course that Microsoft aren't so short sighted as to only offer that kind of benchmarking to people who send their applications for certification - anyone willing to take bets? ).

tuxy

So Speedway would you say a core 2 duo e6600 (2.4 ghz)
would not meet the requirments for rainbow six vegas?

Requirments for rb6 vegas =
Processor:P4 3Ghz or AMD equivalent

koneko

Indeed. I'm not sure what the confusion is here, someone pointed out an issue with your test, they are correct, Speedway is incorrect, many many (MANY) moons ago you could have looked at clockspeed alone but those days are long gone.

OmegaRed

tuxy wrote:

So Speedway would you say a core 2 duo e6600 (2.4 ghz)
would not meet the requirments for rainbow six vegas?

Requirments for rb6 vegas =
Processor:P4 3Ghz or AMD equivalent

I dont think that is the issue as his site would give the e6600 as an effective clock speed of 4.8 ghz (2.4 x 2, as it is dual core) therefore passing the 3.ghz test on Rainbow six vegas.

Matt Simis

Speedway wrote:

That is true yes, PERFORMANCE = frequency and number of instructions performed
BUT as far as i can see if a game has a requirement for a processor with a clock speed of a certain level then a processor should meet that level of clock speed, not performance because I don't ever recall seeing a game that has a performance measure on it related to its actual frequency.

Despite the irrelevant talk of memory controllers and "crossbars", I dont think you are really getting the point of all this.

Interpret this statement:
Minimum System Requirements:
-Windows XP or Vista
-2.0 GHz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent or AMD Athlon XP or equivalent

This is from Company of Heroes. This game has decent copytext, its obvious they are claiming the minimum of 2GHz P4 level performance, regardless of the "clock speed". Even if you just take a step back and think about it, can you really say that if a game states "P4 3.0GHz" that an AthlonX2 5000+ (2.6GHz Dual Core) is "too slow".

The company I work for would hand off product text to a copywriter (standard practice) who "rewords" it for Joe Blogs. They would sometimes confuse MHz, GHz, GB, MB etc while having no clue as to what a K6, K7 P4 etc is. Games that do not list "or equivalent" or a specific CPU type simply have poor copytext, you cannot take these statements as gospel.

"Hello Kitty Island Adventure requires a 2.8GHz CPU" is an incorrect statement, full stop.

Matt Simis

OmegaRed wrote:

I dont think that is the issue as his site would give the e6600 as an effective clock speed of 4.8 ghz (2.4 x 2, as it is dual core) therefore passing the 3.ghz test on Rainbow six vegas.

Which is also complete BS as a dual core is not effectively two times a single cores performance (technically or in practice), even if the application was multi-threaded.

jonski

Speedway wrote:

This is where I disagree. I do understand that yes performance is more than simply clock speed. But if you look at software requirements for games then it is based on clock speed purely.

If I understand this correctly your site is a project , the idea being it is a service to consumers and to stores selling games . The results I received gives me the impression that I should keep my money in my pocket .

Once more I see this topic heading off into the Intel/AMD speed/classification debate . The other sites that offer this kind of service allow for the difference between the two . Also I note that it picks up my cpu as 1700MHz whereas others pick it up as 1877MHz , so I am wondering if you aimed the site more at the intel side of things .

At the end of the day , if this is just a site for your college project , then it is one hell of a job .

Speedway

jonski wrote:

If I understand this correctly your site is a project , the idea being it is a service to consumers and to stores selling games . The results I received gives me the impression that I should keep my money in my pocket .

Once more I see this topic heading off into the Intel/AMD speed/classification debate . The other sites that offer this kind of service allow for the difference between the two . Also I note that it picks up my cpu as 1700MHz whereas others pick it up as 1877MHz , so I am wondering if you aimed the site more at the intel side of things .

At the end of the day , if this is just a site for your college project , then it is one hell of a job .

Thank you Jonski I appreciate that.

tuxy wrote:

So Speedway would you say a core 2 duo e6600 (2.4 ghz)
would not meet the requirments for rainbow six vegas?

Requirments for rb6 vegas =
Processor:P4 3Ghz or AMD equivalent

no tuxy not at all

Matt simis and koneko ok if you are to look at gaming as simply more than clock speed then what would you do. If someone handed you a game that has a minimum requirements of a pentium IV 2.0GHz or equiv and you have a 1.7GHz AMD then what would you do as a programmer or as someone designing a website such as this.

I posted this thread for people to use the site and to pass on some advice. I am delighted that so many people are taking the time to use it.

But what would you advise so, if a game advises at least a 2.0GHz CPU then for and AMD 1.7GHz what should that be rated at so? should i add 500MHz to it to bring it to Intel terms? should i Add 700Mhz? there is no clear cut way to do that. The same as with dual core. One person suggested only adding half the speed again but that isn't accurate because it depends on whether or not the program is multi threaded and supports dual core etc.so should i add .5 of the speed again, should i add 1.5??

there is no clear way to do that so i went with what is easiest to explain to normal every day customers with very little technical knowledge. If windows tells them that their CPU runs at 1.7GHz and the game needs 2.0GHz then their CPU is failed according to this site. This site was designed to help non technically minded people and if you tell them yes on this game the 1.7GHz would fail but on this one if won't cause the AMD has a much better IPC then the point of this site is gone - simplicity.
I DO understand and AGREE that the AMD has a much better performance but for the purpose of this site there is no clear cut way to bring it to "Intel" ratings and say its not 1.7GHz its actually 3.0GHz.

Again thank you for taking the time to look at my site and provide an opinion on it i do appreciate it

Matt Simis

Speedway wrote:

Matt simis and koneko ok if you are to look at gaming as simply more than clock speed then what would you do. If someone handed you a game that has a minimum requirements of a pentium IV 2.0GHz or equiv and you have a 1.7GHz AMD then what would you do as a programmer or as someone designing a website such as this.

Real Simple, instead of just reading the raw clockspeed, read the CPUID tag too and put some logic in on the server side to understand both the ratings and the MHz value, as a human should.
This is what the commercial and other freeware apps do.
You should not add virtual MHz... besides further confusion, games will drop this rating recomendation too as Intel have ended the "more MHz is better" campaign with the C2D.

Speedway wrote:

But what would you advise so, if a game advises at least a 2.0GHz CPU then for and AMD 1.7GHz what should that be rated at so? should i add 500MHz to it to bring it to Intel terms? should i Add 700Mhz? there is no clear cut way to do that. The same as with dual core. One person suggested only adding half the speed again but that isn't accurate because it depends on whether or not the program is multi threaded and supports dual core etc.so should i add .5 of the speed again, should i add 1.5??

Again, you are way over complicating things. Have a field that states "Requires Dual Core?" on the game side and check to see if a valid Dual Core CPU is installed. If yes, then state all is ok. There is no need to reinvent the wheel and add arbitary values to the CPU "MHz".

Speedway wrote:

there is no clear way to do that so i went with what is easiest to explain to normal every day customers with very little technical knowledge. If windows tells them that their CPU runs at 1.7GHz and the game needs 2.0GHz then their CPU is failed according to this site.

As it stands your site is potientially sending the completely incorrect message that X game will not work on a system that is likely fully supported to a huge number of potiential visitors. If the aim is to make their life easier, it has failed in this regard due to a relatively minor technicality. Also note that even Windows "System Properties" does not just quote a customers CPU frequency, the first line states the CPUID/Rating.

You should note that Valve's Gaming HW Survey (which is upto date as of yesterday) shows 48.8% of their massive user base are on AMD systems. None of which will show a realistic or expected result on your test, nor will many Core2Duo systems.

koneko

Speedway wrote:

I DO understand and AGREE that the AMD has a much better performance but for the purpose of this site there is no clear cut way to bring it to "Intel" ratings and say its not 1.7GHz its actually 3.0GHz.

That's not really what you were saying before, grand if you accept/see that now, but surely it is a big factor that you're essentially cutting a lot of customers out by doing that, only (certain) Intel-based PCs are compatible with the site then. I have an E6600 and the clock speed would be listed as 2.4Ghz, it would then tell me it isn's sufficient if the game "needs" 2.8Ghz. The site would be aimed at simple users and if they have an AMD-based system and check the site they won't buy the game because the site tells them it won't work, and they don't know any better.

Check out the site I linked to before (http://www.srtest.com), I just quickly ran on it on this system and it doesn't only factor in the clock speed figure. It lists the CPU speed and then "Performance Rated At...", and in this case it's an AMD CPU and does list a correct equivalent speed. Haven't checked the FutureMark one but it might be worth looking at that to see what they do.

Speedway

Matt Simis wrote:

Real Simple, instead of just reading the raw clockspeed, read the CPUID tag too and put some logic in on the server side to understand both the ratings and the MHz value

This website uses the directX diagnostics tool to run and that has no CPUID tag. The program extracts the clock speed from the DXDIAG text file that windows creates and uses that.

As i was saying if I was to extract the CPUID and say the processor was an AMD FX or an AMD 64 3000 how can I simply right logic that if that chip is in this machine x,y,z games will run otherwise it won't. You can't simply identify whether a game will run based on the CPU installed. That would mean using every single CPU on the market with everyone of those games to see if in fact the AMD CPU works even though it has a lower clock speed.

Matt Simis wrote:

Again, Have a field that states "Requires Dual Core?" on the game side and check to see if a valid Dual Core CPU is installed

There is no game that "requires" dual core.

Speedway

koneko wrote:

I have an E6600 and the clock speed would be listed as 2.4Ghz, it would then tell me it isn's sufficient if the game "needs" 2.8Ghz.

it would detect that your chip is a dual core 2.4GHz, set it to 4.8GHz and tell you that you CAN run the game

Matt Simis

Speedway wrote:

This website uses the directX diagnostics tool to run and that has no CPUID tag. The program extracts the clock speed from the DXDIAG text file that windows creates and uses that.

As i was saying if I was to extract the CPUID and say the processor was an AMD FX or an AMD 64 3000 how can I simply right logic that if that chip is in this machine x,y,z games will run otherwise it won't. You can't simply identify whether a game will run based on the CPU installed. That would mean using every single CPU on the market with everyone of those games to see if in fact the AMD CPU works even though it has a lower clock speed.

There is no game that "requires" dual core.

Sigh... Look, Im not going to write the site for you, you can sit there and continue to excuse the end result and make things sound terribly complicated all you want.. You asked for feedback and you got a consistant response on a glaring error not only on the site, but seemingly in the logic you have been applying to your 5years in the trade.

On DXDIAG and CPUID... you looked at DXDIAG itself recently?

This is exactly what appears in the DXDIAG.txt output too. All the info you need is right there, you just need to find a way to harvest and present it.

And yes, I know no current game requires Dual Core. That would be a "No" in the "Requires.." script then wouldnt it.

koneko

Speedway wrote:

it would detect that your chip is a dual core 2.4GHz, set it to 4.8GHz and tell you that you CAN run the game

Well, other than ignoring the rest of my post that isn't actually correct, it isn't 4.8Ghz, but at least it doesn't tell you you can't run the game then.

I just feel that if you ignore everyone with an AMD system or system that doesn't match the specific way you're working this out, it defeats the purpose of the page, a lot of customers are going to be told they can't run a game when they can, misinformation is surely is not the result you or they (or Gamestop!) want.

Speedway

Matt Simis wrote:

On DXDIAG and CPUID... you looked at DXDIAG itself recently?

YES i know that has the CPU

BUT like i just said to check the CPU name against games you'd have to actually go and check each game with most of the CPUs on the market and see how it shapes up

Speedway

koneko wrote:

Well, other than ignoring the rest of my post that isn't actually correct, it isn't 4.8Ghz, but at least it doesn't tell you you can't run the game then.

I just feel that if you ignore everyone with an AMD system or system that doesn't match the specific way you're working this out, it defeats the purpose of the page, a lot of customers are going to be told they can't run a game when they can, misinformation is surely is not the result you or they (or Gamestop!) want.

ok i can see what you're saying but when i designed this i went by clock speed. when i went by clock speed I didn't think purely intel at all.

If i had written the code to say pick up AMD chips at 1.7GHz and then put them equal to a 3.0GHz Intel processor then I would have been SLATED!

I went by clock speed because as I was saying the only measure any game gives on CPU requirements listed on its box is clock speed.Because I would think that to just say for all AMDs that their clock speed is doubled, or 1.5 times an Intel then that would be highly incorrect

Matt Simis

Speedway wrote:

YES i know that has the CPU

BUT like i just said to check the CPU name against games you'd have to actually go and check each game with most of the CPUs on the market and see how it shapes up

Yeah, so you know what must be done.. whats the problem?
You check the CPU Name/Rating, in this case E6600 or in the earlier case Athlon 3000+ against the requirement on the Game side. If the game needs a P4 2GHz (assume stupid games that dont state "P4" do infact mean P4 XGhz) or above, then you know it will work and you can have the site give that answer quite simply.

If you dont/cant do this, then Im sorry, I fail to see the point of the tool.

Speedway wrote:

If i had written the code to say pick up AMD chips at 1.7GHz and then put them equal to a 3.0GHz Intel processor then I would have been SLATED!

Why, AMD have done this for years? There is even a tool on the web with the formula to extrapolate the AMD speed into Intel old school MHz Terms. Doing what you suggest may have been a bit inaccurate, but less so then not doing it IMO.

Speedway

ok i searched and game across this formula
(AMD MHz + 500) X 1.5 = Intel MHz

would everyone think that would be more accurate if in the event that cpu type is an AMD then it adjusts the clock speed as above?

tuxy

Speedway wrote:

ok i searched and game across this formula
(AMD MHz + 500) X 1.5 = Intel MHz

would everyone think that would be more accurate if in the event that cpu type is an AMD then it adjusts the clock speed as above?

Which intel and amd processor?
You would need different formula for different ones.

Speedway

here's where i got it http://n00dlestheindelible.blogspot.com/2006/09/amd-to-intel-mhz-conversions.html

Speedway

so maybe use it for AMD 64 bit chips?

TelePaul

Hmm it's a cool idea but I don't know if it has my system spec right...it seems to think I have 512 MB of ram (I think I have 256) and that my Graphics card is 32 (I think it's 64). Any thoughts?