Is it critical to use a Pentium? Will the game only work with a Pentium for some compatibility reason?
The game is Rouge Spear : Black Thorn.
Thank YouYou’ll be just fine.
Good lord yes…and good job going with the Duron over a Pentium.
Using a very rough estimate you have to figure that the P3 is very roughly equivliant the the Athlon and the Duron is very rougly equivlant to the Celeron.
Actually I think the Athlon is at least equal if not faster then the P4. Both being at the same clock speed But that might change for programs that are written directly for the P4.
Just a wag here, I’d say your 900 mhz Duron is about the same as:
600 - 700 mhz Athlon
650 - 750 mhz P3
900 mhz Celeron
and I would guess 625 - 725 mhz P4
(note not all clock speeds are actually available - just a wag of what would be equivlant)
So I’d say that anything that requires less then a P3 650 would run just fine (though you might be at the min requirements)
Maybe someone else can give you a comparson based on something more then a wag though.
Well, I’ve actually seen computers be too fast for a particular game, but these are usually games designed for less than 100 MHz and 8 MB RAM, or so.
It’s actually pretty funny–some of them refuse to run, but others just go at hyperspeed (making them totally unplayable).
(Blank)
Not what he said at all. A 900 MHz Duron really processes 900 million instructions per second. But different chips, are capable of accomplishing more (or less) at the the same clock speed. So if you replaced your 900 MHz Duron with a 900 MHz Athlon, for instance (not that you could, the motherboards aren’t compatible), you’d have a computer that “runs faster”.
Mr Death (Some SN) got it- A xMhz chip runs at xMhz where x is the speed in your case 900 (except for cyrix 6x86 chips - but that’s another story) - but just because 2 chips are running at the same speed doesn’t mean that they are processing the same amount of info at the same time.
At one time the celeron were basically P2’s that had a problem that was solved by deactivating the internal cache. The internal cache was just a place where data waited till the cpu could get to it - it’s much faster having a waiting area on the cpu chip then having to wait for the data to come in from ram (an external waiting area). Now celerons have some internal cache but not as much as the P2,3,4 line. I’m not sure if the durons are the same or there is another reason that they are not as fast as their athlon bretheren.
The Duron bears the same relationship to the Thunderbird that the Celeron(II) has with the Pentium2/3: Smaller cache and lower frontside bus(FSB) clock speed (66MHz vs 100MHz for Celeron/P-II, 100MHz vs 133MHz for CeleronII/P-III and Duron/T-Bird). The Celeron processors also lack the SMP (Symetric Multi-Processing, i.e. multiple CPUs on one mainboard) capability the P2/3/4 chips have although the Celeron and CeleronA series could be hacked to support it.
Generally, if your computer’s clock speed is higher than what the game recommends, you’re good to go, regardless of CPU brand (Cyrix is an exception in some cases). If MMX is a requirement, AMD’s 3DNow! (K6-II/III, Athlon, Thunderbird, Duron, Palomino) is generally an acceptable substitute.
Not quite. I’ve never heard of a game that requires MMX. In addition, a program needs to be specifically written to take advantage of MMX or 3DNow! If it is only written to take advantage of MMX then 3DNow! won’t help you at all. MMX and 3DNow! are enhancements that help some programs perform better (usually games) but it’s not necessary to have those enhancements to actually run the program.
Generally using an AMD chip or a Pentium chip won’t matter. In the ‘old’ days there were some occasional compatibility issues with AMD processors. In some cases you’d see programers issues AMD only patches to resolve those issues. Since the release of the Thunderbird chip from AMD these issues seem to be a thing of the past.
As to your 900 Duron it will easily run something calling for a Pentium 233. Please note that the minimums printed on most programs really are just that…sometimes even less. While the program will technically run on the minimum posted they rarely perform anywhere close to what most people would consider even moderately reasonable. The game would hardly be playable and/or enjoyable at that CPU level.
As to the Pentium vs. AMD debate it currently seems that the AMD Thunderbird class beats any similarly clocked Pentium. Indeed, the Thunderbird usually beats a Pentium IV class CPU that is clocked higher (i.e. a P-IV 1.7Ghz vs. Thunderbird 1.3Ghz). The Duron is the bargain version of the Thunderbird and is really quite a nice chip that nearly equals its bigger brother. In the Duron vs. Celeron battle the Duron easily blows away the Celeron until very recently so now it merely beats the Celeron (recently the Celeron got a FSB clock boost that it sorely needed…the Duron was/is cheaper and very noticeably faster than a similarly clocked Celeron is).
Be careful of basing your assumptions on system speed solely on the listed clock speed. This is what Intel has doen with the P-IV figuring clock speed is king in the minds of consumers. However, to achieve those clock speed gains Intel designed their chip in a specific way that is usually less efficient than the ‘slower’ P-III and Thunderbird. As a result you almost always see worse performance out of a P-IV than a ‘slower’ top end (1Ghz+) AMD CPU.
In the end remember the CPU is just one piece of a system that has to work as a whole. Just like a car dropping a higher horsepower engine in doesn’t necessarily equate to better speed. You might sit there spinning your wheels going nowhere unless you paid attention to also modifiying your transmission, suspension, wheels, etc… A car with a lower horsepower engine but has everything matched to take best advantage of that speed will beat the car with the bigger engine.
Some Fenris Wolf made an MMX only version of their game, Rebel Moon Rising and I believe (don’t hold me to it!) that the original Unreal required MMX.
On the other hand, maybe it was just unplayable without it… 
There are a few games that require it. Some of the Novalogic games come to mind. 3dnow AMD chips do MMX also.
The duron is faster than the Celeron, slower than the thunderbird.
I have an AMD 1ghz classic Athlon, and I have never found anything it wouldnt run.
Actually, they are, and you could, as long as we’re talking about the Thunderbird Athlons rather than the older “Slot-A” Athlons. They are 100% compatible, and due to the low prices of Athlons these days, may even be a good upgrade. The only thing you need to ensure is that your motherboard can handle the FSB speed of the CPU (some newer Athlons use a 133/266Mhz FSB while all Durons run at 100/200. If your motherboard will only do 100/200, make sure you get an Ahtlon that matches).