will my old software work with a dual core 64 AMD processor ?

[beammeup]

Hi, I'm thinking about building another PC for video editing and DVD creations. All the computer guys I go to want to build me a dual core AMD 64 CPU system. Can anybody who has made this CPU upgrade tell me if the following programs will still work with the dual core Processor:

I currently use a 2 x AMD MP2400's system ( 28 months old and no crashes )( it's NOT connected to the internet )

I'm hoping to stay with Win 2000 SP4

Here are the appz I use:
Sony Vegas V4 ( formally Sonic foundry ) & Sony Vegas V5
Canopus Procoder 1.5
Tmpgenc 2.5
Tmpgenc DVD Author 1.5 & 1.6
Paint shop Pro V 6
Photoshop elements V 2
Pro show Gold

Any info appreciated. I don't want to dive in and pay for a new system if
most of my apps fall over or work at half speed !

thanks
Scott

[ROF]

From experience building several dual core systems and owning one myself I can say TMPGENC, PhotoShop, and PSP all work fine on dual core systems. I'd imagine the others will also work fine as well.

[rallynavvie]

Yes, those SMP-aware apps will utilize both cores, something most dual-core owners are completely oblivious to.

[ROF]

@rallynavvie

Is there any software you know of that doesn't work with DCs? Any that actually work worse? I've only seen improvements but nothing that fails to work or doesn't work as well.

[rallynavvie]

I don't understand your question I guess.

There are physically two processors on the die on a dual-core chip. The Windows operating system sees these as two processors. Unless a program is written to take advantage of mulitple, physical CPUs it will only use one of the two processors on the die. The operating system doesn't make an application use more than one processor, the software itself needs to be written in order to support it. The hardware on a dual-core chip doesn't make a process use both processors.

What does this mean? Well for the most part a program is going to see a dual-core processor as just a single processor of the rated clock/speed it says it is. However since there are physically two of them you can rely on at least some lower-priority processes being tasked to the other processor so more of a single processor's power can be utilized by the active, higher-priority process. This is probably why you see better performance on a dual-core 2.8 GHz chip than you would on a single-core 2.8 GHz chip.

Applications such as TMPGEnc, most Adobe applications, and many CAD and 3D design suites are written to take advantage of multiple physical processors. Those applications will use as much as possible of both processors on a dual-core die. Those applications will really like dual-core processors just as they did SMP systems.

The architecture of a dual-core system is very similar to a SMP machine. I've been building and using SMP systems for years and I'm all too familiar with their pros and cons. For years people have thought dual-processor systems as fast but they're associating that speed to the name and the idea of having two processors. There's a lot more to it than that. Dual-core processors are riding that marketing wave, relying on most folks to instantly think it's twice as fast as a single core processor. That and they're inundating the market with the things. Gamers are the most vulnerable it seems, many are under the assumption that a dual-core 3.0 GHz is faster than a single-core 3.4 GHz processor when gaming. Tasking extraneous processes to a second processor does not yield a very market increase in your gaming performance, certainly not 400 MHz worth. It may be worth about 200 MHz difference in speed, maybe.

At least the original poster is already acquainted with the world of SMP so I'm sure he'll be able to adjust to his new dual-core machine a lot easier than would most other users, or at least with no pre-conceived notions of speed increases. I have had a chance to play with a dual-core system. A friend of mine picked one up for photography work. He's really enjoying working with Photoshop on it. I think my current duallie is performing slightly faster than his dual-core 3.0, but not if you factor in cost differences. I'm getting more familiar with dual-cores since I'm putting together a "quad-core" system around two dual-core Opterons this summer. Still gotta research chipsets and other such platform-specific things though