lid (HawkEye_42) wrote:

I know this question has been asked before, but I wanted to know if a
dual processor system would help in my situation.

I use my system to do lots of multitasking (multiple memory intensive
programs). Usually I run two instances (don't ask why, hehe) of a
game called Dark Age of Camelot (it's an online role playing game.)

Doesn't matter how many applications/games you are running, an idle
process wastes very very little CPU cycles. So, unless you have the
two games tiled on the screen so that both games are rendered
simultaneously, or the game is programmed really badly, you won't see
any speed increase with dual CPUs.

The system usually runs ok with 2 instances at one time, but I do get
lag (its system lag, not internet lag, computer screen freezes for a
couple of seconds.

That doesn't sound like CPU issue. Overworked CPU alone would slow
things down but intermittent freezes are almost always related to
device access and IO (*). Maybe memory isn't enough, maybe there are
some issues with multiple socket connections in your game.. etc.

(*) Try running an only CPU intensive (ie little RAM access) process
in the background with normal or high priority while running another
process in the background and you'll see what I mean. System should
slow down overall and more or less smoothly. Dual CPU's work best in
such situations. If both processes are competing for other slower
resources simultaneously, that will be the bottleneck and you won't
see much improvement at all w dual CPUs.