Gaming clique

[Birdman1811]

I'm a PC gamer at heart, but do always have the latest Playstation too, sometimes a console is just better and easier

When it comes to gaming CPU upgrades offer very, very little, no game engines really push the CPU much in comparison to the GPU, many even push the 'AI' to the GPU graphical cores rather than pester the CPU.

I also think for gaming AMD annihilate Intel when it comes to price for performance.

Da fock?

We all ready for a Computer Science lesson now boys and girls? All nice and cosy? Got some caffeine to keep you awake, let's get into it.

The vast majority of modern games are very, very GPU intensive, it's why on a gaming PC the GPU is the most expensive component by far, and nowadays takes up the most case space. Now, how most Computer Programs work is relatively well known, the code resides on a hard drive until it's 'running' when it is loaded into RAM and each instruction is executed by the CPU as needed, for this reason, the more tasks the CPU can do at once (Cores) and the speed it can do them is important. This is ridiculously basic (I've not included any cache or buffering, hyper threading or anything.) 

Now, since the late 90's the GPU has dealt with instructions that related to graphics, the CPU doing absolutely nothing with these, in fact, the CPU doesn't even see them, past an instruction to send all these instructions over, which is dealt with before getting into the main CPU cycle. The vast, vast majority of code in a game is graphical code, so that's all going to the GPU, you can test this, run, even a high-end game on a PC, open Task Manager and you'll see the CPU load doesn't spike all that much. All the CPU does is manage the applications input, any AI and the data storage, nothing anymore taxing than a word processor or spreadsheet really. Of course, having a decent enough CPU to keep your PC running well overall is important, any bottlenecks are an issue, but in gaming, it makes very little real difference. 

Years ago, it was worked out that actually, for the vast majority of AI tasks, modern CPU's are actually over-engineered, it's better to have thousands of tiny cores running small instructions than a few running a few complicated ones. The difference between CPU and GPU? GPU's are hundreds or thousands of cores, only capable of relatively basic tasks, actually perfect for AI. Games aren't exactly known for massive data ordering and organisation with analysis, something a CPU is better suited for. Let's be fair, for many game developers, AI is still essentially a bunch of If-Else Statements a lot of the time. So therefore, why not send a few of these to the GPU too? It reduces strain on the CPU, which can help speed the game up, if the GPU isn't capable, or is busy, then we have the CPU to then go back to instead. This is still very new mind, and not sure how many games are using it fully, but I know Epic are looking at adding it to Unreal Engine, I do believe Unity has it built in, or can be added in. This is also where NVidia slays the competition, they actually have cores set aside for this, CUDA cores, if you look at any NVidia GPU it says how many CUDA cores it has, those are for this.

So yeah, unless you are regularly using your CPU to it's max, I'd always advise spending the money on the GPU, or even faster storage devices.

And this is why I own consoles.

Consoles are just small, pre-built PC's, exactly the same architecture and such. TBH, people building gaming PC's don't need to know this either really.

[Calgary_Baggie]

I'm a PC gamer at heart, but do always have the latest Playstation too, sometimes a console is just better and easier

When it comes to gaming CPU upgrades offer very, very little, no game engines really push the CPU much in comparison to the GPU, many even push the 'AI' to the GPU graphical cores rather than pester the CPU.

I also think for gaming AMD annihilate Intel when it comes to price for performance.

Da fock?

We all ready for a Computer Science lesson now boys and girls? All nice and cosy? Got some caffeine to keep you awake, let's get into it.

The vast majority of modern games are very, very GPU intensive, it's why on a gaming PC the GPU is the most expensive component by far, and nowadays takes up the most case space. Now, how most Computer Programs work is relatively well known, the code resides on a hard drive until it's 'running' when it is loaded into RAM and each instruction is executed by the CPU as needed, for this reason, the more tasks the CPU can do at once (Cores) and the speed it can do them is important. This is ridiculously basic (I've not included any cache or buffering, hyper threading or anything.) 

Now, since the late 90's the GPU has dealt with instructions that related to graphics, the CPU doing absolutely nothing with these, in fact, the CPU doesn't even see them, past an instruction to send all these instructions over, which is dealt with before getting into the main CPU cycle. The vast, vast majority of code in a game is graphical code, so that's all going to the GPU, you can test this, run, even a high-end game on a PC, open Task Manager and you'll see the CPU load doesn't spike all that much. All the CPU does is manage the applications input, any AI and the data storage, nothing anymore taxing than a word processor or spreadsheet really. Of course, having a decent enough CPU to keep your PC running well overall is important, any bottlenecks are an issue, but in gaming, it makes very little real difference. 

Years ago, it was worked out that actually, for the vast majority of AI tasks, modern CPU's are actually over-engineered, it's better to have thousands of tiny cores running small instructions than a few running a few complicated ones. The difference between CPU and GPU? GPU's are hundreds or thousands of cores, only capable of relatively basic tasks, actually perfect for AI. Games aren't exactly known for massive data ordering and organisation with analysis, something a CPU is better suited for. Let's be fair, for many game developers, AI is still essentially a bunch of If-Else Statements a lot of the time. So therefore, why not send a few of these to the GPU too? It reduces strain on the CPU, which can help speed the game up, if the GPU isn't capable, or is busy, then we have the CPU to then go back to instead. This is still very new mind, and not sure how many games are using it fully, but I know Epic are looking at adding it to Unreal Engine, I do believe Unity has it built in, or can be added in. This is also where NVidia slays the competition, they actually have cores set aside for this, CUDA cores, if you look at any NVidia GPU it says how many CUDA cores it has, those are for this.

So yeah, unless you are regularly using your CPU to it's max, I'd always advise spending the money on the GPU, or even faster storage devices.

Da Fock II 

Nah I get ya. Good knowledge and extremely well written.

[MassDebater]

Thing is, if you pair an underpowered CPU with a mid end GPU then you will end up CPU bound and it will impact performance anyway. In short, everything at some level goes via the CPU, it kindda keeps everything else in line and doing the right thing, a bit like a conductor in an orchestra, and if it's not powerful enough then it will affect everything else.

Then again if you can afford to spunk £800 on a GPU then why would you not spend £350+ on a CPU to keep things chugging along nicely?

[Birdman1811]

Thing is, if you pair an underpowered CPU with a mid end GPU then you will end up CPU bound and it will impact performance anyway. In short, everything at some level goes via the CPU, it kindda keeps everything else in line and doing the right thing, a bit like a conductor in an orchestra, and if it's not powerful enough then it will affect everything else.

Then again if you can afford to spunk £800 on a GPU then why would you not spend £350+ on a CPU to keep things chugging along nicely?

Oh absolutely.

But if you have a bit left over in budget, or want a quick upgrade, best results will often come from GPU for gaming at least

[Duffers]

A free demo for the RE4 remake has dropped overnight. Will have a go on that later.

---

Been playing Atomic Heart on Gamepass for the last week or so. It's a strange game and I'm not 100% sure I enjoy it.

It's basically a straight rip-off of Bioshock, but in Russia, the shooting and powers you get are almost identical and it has one of the most obnoxious and irritating main characters in a game since Duke Nukem. That said it's a pretty fun play through, it looks great and the story is interesting enough to keep me playing.

There's also an overly sexual fridge that tries to rape you at some point, which is erm, something I suppose...

[Midget In A Pinstripe Suit]

A free demo for the RE4 remake has dropped overnight. Will have a go on that later.

Just had a watch, it's basically all the sections from the gameplay footage that's out there. Looks really good, I'm resigned to playing it in about a year!

[Duffers]

A free demo for the RE4 remake has dropped overnight. Will have a go on that later.

Just had a watch, it's basically all the sections from the gameplay footage that's out there. Looks really good, I'm resigned to playing it in about a year!

Got it on pre-order, absolutely loved the original and all the recent RE games and remakes have been good.

Can't wait to play it.

[Midget In A Pinstripe Suit]

Yeah, with the exception on RE3 remake, which strayed a little too far from the OG IMVFHO FWIW.

[Duffers]

Yeah, with the exception on RE3 remake, which strayed a little too far from the OG IMVFHO FWIW.

The 3make was decent IMO but too short, if you knew where you were going you could easily blast through it in 3-4 hours.

[MassDebater]

Just wanted to thank Cuzer for the mini review of The Quarry before, must admit I totally enjoyed it. 'free' on PS++ too, well worth an evening of anyone's time.