cpu importance

General discussion about Celestia that doesn't fit into other forums.
Topic author
terryhillis
Posts: 3
Joined: 10.07.2008
With us: 16 years 4 months

cpu importance

Post #1by terryhillis » 10.07.2008, 23:08

is your cpu speed really that important when playing a 3d game (ex: world in conflict, crysis etc...) if you have a good graphics card(ex:8800gt, 9600gt ...)??

Avatar
selden
Developer
Posts: 10192
Joined: 04.09.2002
With us: 22 years 2 months
Location: NY, USA

Re: cpu importance

Post #2by selden » 11.07.2008, 11:44

Terry,

This forum is really for discussing Celestia, not games. If you're primarily interested in gaming, and not in Celestia, you should consider asking your questions on a game-related Forum.

For Celestia, at least, the CPU performance is very important. There are many positioning parameters which have to be recalculated for every visible object before the next frame can be displayed. Graphics chips are not used to calculate them, since the algorithms are not easily translated into a format that the graphics chips can use.

However, it certainly is possible to use graphics chips for more than just graphics display calculations. Modern graphics chipsets are much better at many types of calculations than are modern CPUs. Nvidia seems to be in the lead in providing compilers intended to make it possible to use graphics chips for general purpose computing.
Selden


Return to “Celestia Users”