Dual core processors and older games

[Fred G]

I'm currently considering getting a dual core processor pc for gaming and i am curious about something. This could be a stupid question but i'd like to know how will older games play on one of these. A good number of my favorite games are old, some 3 or 4 years old, a few of them are even older than that more like 7 or 8 years old. The reason why i'm getting a new machine is so i can run games that wont work on the one i have right now, but i still would like to play the older ones as well. I'm sure folks out there have tried running older games on a fast processor, so what are the results, are they running too fast, do they work at all?

 

[Nodsu]

Any PC program (unless broken by design) will run on any newer-than-the-software-was-written-for x86/x64 processor no problem. You can boot DOS and play your golden oldies on a Conroe just fine (unless the "too fast" bug is present). Games running too fast should be a thing of ancient past (early 1990s) - anything made for Windows 95 and up should work.

 

[Fred G]

Glad to hear it, thanx!

 

[Nodsu]

One thing to note.

Modern CPUs can have their operating frequency modified on the fly. This confuses some games that sample the CPU speed at startup but fail to notice that the CPU speeds up once the game has loaded and starts consuming more processor time.

You can fix this by setting the CPU to run at constant speed.