Installing Dual Core Optimizer on Athlon 64 X2 4400+

[Shawny.C]

I had installed the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ processor on my MSI K9A Platinum Motherboard. It is a new board. Now the system is running Windows 7 32bit. The processor is core named as Brisbane. Few of my friends who are using the AMD built computer have installed the AMD Dual Core Optimizer. I don’t know why. Is it really needed in all AMD based systems? I don’t think that it is really important because I already have Cool'n'Quiet?

What yo u guys think, If I am using a AMD computer, is it mandatory to install Dual Core Optimizer ?

[Sharanya]

The fact is AMD Dual Core Optimizer is specially meant to give support to Athlon 64 X2 4400+ processor but it is not supported in Windows 7. The Dual Core Optimizer is used to optimize the performance of Dual core processors or any multi-core processors but Windows 7 already has this feature and it can efficiently handle any dual core processors.

So you don’t need to install it again. This is same for Windows vista. The Dual Core Optimizer supports all AMD multi core processors (at least up to the x4's). This software adds SMP support. Due to this the game will run faster and video encoding will be more efficient due to the complete optimization of Dual core processor.

[Rawana]

Yes, Windows 7 does not support the AMD Dual Core Optimizer because it is specifically designed for Windows XP users by AMD in order to solve the compatibility issues with some OS and AMD Athlon processors. Users who had installed the AMD athlon 64 processor on their Windows XP system had experienced frequent lag, stuttering and slow down in games. I think it has issue with all AMD dual core processors. Even after having good gaming PC, video games could not able to run faster. To solve this issue, AMD had come across this unique approach only for XP users.

[Ilampirai]

The main intention of AMD Dual Core Optimizer is to optimize the PC gaming and video performance. The Optimizer will bypass the Windows API for timing. The process will happen directly and for that it uses the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. I will not explain about the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. Actually the RDTSC does not provide any kind of benefit to the application which relies on it and even it will not account effective power management mechanisms regarding the increment rate of processor core's Time Stamp Counter (TSC). The Dual Core Optimizer will fix the video effect and other timing effect which seems improper. It will work on only those apps which rely on dual core processor. The performance or effect will be increased by adjusting the core time-stamp-counters due to this instruction get properly synchronized. The supported processors are:

1. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor
2. AMD Athlon 64 FX Processor
3. AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology

[Aaryan2011]

Dual Core Optimizer is a kind of patch for Windows XP users whereas Windows 7 users do not need to worry about this patch because the OS itself has a total fix for this. This is implemented directly by the Microsoft side to support multi-core processor fully without losing a bit of performance. I think that the first version of Dual Core Optimizer released 2 to 3 years before. Few games started using multi threaded CPUs but at that the OS was incompatible handle this thing. Then AMD patch brought a timing fix. If you are using Windows XP and AMD Athlon dual core processor, you should install this patch. Also if you have Windows vista SP1, you may install it but not mandatory. Later version should not need because it is pre-included.