11 replies to this topic

[chrism_scotland]

I've been playing Harpoon on my Netbook and while it is playable it can bog down sometimes which I put down to the pretty poor 1.6Ghz Atom processor in my Compaq Netbook.
I've been looking at "trading up" to an Acer Travelmate 8371 which has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor which is slower 1 core v 1 core but dual core is basically 2.8 Ghz, so I was wondering if Harpoon would actually utilise two cores?

[donaldseadog]

I've been playing Harpoon on my Netbook and while it is playable it can bog down sometimes which I put down to the pretty poor 1.6Ghz Atom processor in my Compaq Netbook.
I've been looking at "trading up" to an Acer Travelmate 8371 which has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor which is slower 1 core v 1 core but dual core is basically 2.8 Ghz, so I was wondering if Harpoon would actually utilise two cores?

I can't comment on dual core stuff (I use a celeron 2.8GHz in my Acer TravelMate 240) but I do know that it made a HUGE difference for me when I went from 256 meg RAM to 512. Even if you do buy 'up' I'd look at an instant RAM upgrade at purchase if its not dear, and usually it's not.
Don Thomas

[chrism_scotland]

I've been playing Harpoon on my Netbook and while it is playable it can bog down sometimes which I put down to the pretty poor 1.6Ghz Atom processor in my Compaq Netbook.
I've been looking at "trading up" to an Acer Travelmate 8371 which has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor which is slower 1 core v 1 core but dual core is basically 2.8 Ghz, so I was wondering if Harpoon would actually utilise two cores?

I can't comment on dual core stuff (I use a celeron 2.8GHz in my Acer TravelMate 240) but I do know that it made a HUGE difference for me when I went from 256 meg RAM to 512. Even if you do buy 'up' I'd look at an instant RAM upgrade at purchase if its not dear, and usually it's not.
Don Thomas

I did add an extra 2GB RAM to my netbook and it has made a big difference not just to Harpoon but everything!

[broncepulido]

Thanks for the tip ! same my Asus Netbook

[TonyE]

HC doesn't explicitly use multiple cores at this juncture but it will eventually and most probably within the lifetime of your netbook.

[TEPonta]

For what it's worth, my 2.3 gHz dual core system suffered from numerous hang ups and "Not Responding" alerts when running Harpoon and other things until I went from 1 gig of RAM to 3 gigs.

I haven't had a problem since, and I think increased RAM solves a multitude of problems.

It's hard to believe people once thought that nobody would ever need more than 640k of RAM.

Buddha

[chrism_scotland]

Well I'm going to keep hold of my netbook just now, between Harpoon and TOAW3 thats where most of my time goes when I'm sitting in a hotel room, airport or plane, I've got a Seagate Momentus XT Drive coming for it which is kinda a hybrid 7200RPM Hard Drive and SSD which I'm hoping will further improve performance of not just Harpoon but my whole system! Just waiting on my new extended battery that should give me 10 hours life to sink those pesky Soviet ships!

[chrism_scotland]

Heres a query then, my current netbook has a bog standard 1.6Ghz Atom CPU and the one I'm looking to buy has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Chip, for most things this will be night and day compared to the old Atom but if Harpoon doesn't use two cores surely that means I would be taking a performance hit from 1.6Ghz on the 1 core CPU to 1.4Ghz on one core of the dual core cpu??

[donaldseadog]

Heres a query then, my current netbook has a bog standard 1.6Ghz Atom CPU and the one I'm looking to buy has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Chip, for most things this will be night and day compared to the old Atom but if Harpoon doesn't use two cores surely that means I would be taking a performance hit from 1.6Ghz on the 1 core CPU to 1.4Ghz on one core of the dual core cpu??

I'll make a GUESS here, I think that most poor performance in modern computers comes down to what I'll call house keeping, all those things that the operating system and a lot of pesky programs do even when the program isn't running, you know just peaking at what is happening in case something comes up that it can poke its nose into. So I think if the dual processor has any good intelligence built into its controls then you will still see an improvement because the house keeping will be out of the hair of harpoon.
BUT definitely wait till you hear from someone who knows.
Don Thomas

[TonyE]

Heres a query then, my current netbook has a bog standard 1.6Ghz Atom CPU and the one I'm looking to buy has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Chip, for most things this will be night and day compared to the old Atom but if Harpoon doesn't use two cores surely that means I would be taking a performance hit from 1.6Ghz on the 1 core CPU to 1.4Ghz on one core of the dual core cpu??

HC will definitely run faster on the Core 2 Duo. The Atom and Core 2 series cannot be compared GigaHertz to GigaHerts, the Core 2 just plain does a whole lot more per clock cycle than the Atom. Plus as Don hints, the second core will let Windows do a lot of its being on that second core while HC is sucking down processing power.

[chrism_scotland]

Heres a query then, my current netbook has a bog standard 1.6Ghz Atom CPU and the one I'm looking to buy has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Chip, for most things this will be night and day compared to the old Atom but if Harpoon doesn't use two cores surely that means I would be taking a performance hit from 1.6Ghz on the 1 core CPU to 1.4Ghz on one core of the dual core cpu??

HC will definitely run faster on the Core 2 Duo. The Atom and Core 2 series cannot be compared GigaHertz to GigaHerts, the Core 2 just plain does a whole lot more per clock cycle than the Atom. Plus as Don hints, the second core will let Windows do a lot of its being on that second core while HC is sucking down processing power.

Thanks Tony, I can confirm the 1.4Ghz Core 2 Duo spanks the 1.6Ghz Atom and even very intensive HCE scenarios are now flying along! Very pleased that I can now indulge my passion for Harpoon on the move!

[mavfin]

Heres a query then, my current netbook has a bog standard 1.6Ghz Atom CPU and the one I'm looking to buy has a 1.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Chip, for most things this will be night and day compared to the old Atom but if Harpoon doesn't use two cores surely that means I would be taking a performance hit from 1.6Ghz on the 1 core CPU to 1.4Ghz on one core of the dual core cpu??

HC will definitely run faster on the Core 2 Duo. The Atom and Core 2 series cannot be compared GigaHertz to GigaHerts, the Core 2 just plain does a whole lot more per clock cycle than the Atom. Plus as Don hints, the second core will let Windows do a lot of its being on that second core while HC is sucking down processing power.

Thanks Tony, I can confirm the 1.4Ghz Core 2 Duo spanks the 1.6Ghz Atom and even very intensive HCE scenarios are now flying along! Very pleased that I can now indulge my passion for Harpoon on the move!

A comment on dual/more cores: On my computer, playing a currently very popular MMO with not a lot of multi-core support, the cores still help, because, core 1 handles the game's main thread, 2 cores handle graphics threads, and the 4th core handles the OS, so everything functions fine, even if I tab out ahd look on the web for something. I can even run 2 instances of the MMO for a short time to trade items between characters on different accounts, etc.

I can also run Windows XP in a VM and play Harpoon on 1 virtual core. give it 1 GB of RAM, and it plays fine that way in emulation, H3ANW works fine, too. Four 64-bit cores running a 64-bit OS emulating a 32-bit OS has CPU to burn.