quad core cpu support

AFAIK, the beta doesn't really support multi-core CPUs, but the release will do a better job of it

I don't believe there's a shortcut to check FPS

In a world of multi core CPU where EVERYTHING is now multi core... that is a must

Well, as I understand it, some improvements made it into beta 4 (Blair posted that the disappearing icons on random multistar maps is due to new multi-core support code), but I believe they're still working on it, though we're not likely to see the finished deal patched into the beta.

That said, so far Sins isn't that CPU intensive unless you get to really really large ship numbers, which I imagine will happen quite a bit in SP, but for MP so far is not really an issue

Right now only texture loading is multi-threaded.

so when there is not too much multi-threading right now, would the os change the performance in a positive way since vista probably does a better handling with multiple cpus?! because if the developers did't made it until know they probably won't do it until release? am i right? or is the implementation of threading processes not a too hard way? thanks!

Wagering a guess, are you trying to come up with a system config that will run the game well, or trying to find out if yours will?

By the sound of it, the shipped game will have pretty complete multi-core support, I imagine the dev team has been working pretty hard on it, and our beta build should be pretty far behind their internal builds Honestly, though, I don't suspect the OS choice will have any big impact on game performance unless (possibly) you get to some extreme ship numbers. It's a lot easier to make your GPU hiccup than your CPU in a game like this

Devvv, I'm not sure I understand your question, but when it comes to multiple cores unless the program itself supports multiple cores the OS can't "make" it utilize additional cores. It might handle moving all other applications and processes off the core the program is using (or in the case of Vista at least do a "better job about it...), but thats about it.

Its not easy to re-engineer a single threaded application into a multi-threaded app by any means. If SoaSE has been coded with multi-threading in mind that will make life much simplier and therefore more likely in the release code. The truth can only be answered by the lead programmers though it probably lies somewhere between the two in reality.

I think I'm right in saying only Crysis takes advantage of Quad core processors to date, though of course in all games the OS will offload its own threads onto other cores leaving the game threads to maximise the processing time of the core they have affinity to.

From my experience of Vista I wouldn't say it offered any multi-processing capabilities above XP.

yes, i believe vista makes games only faster if you have more than 2 gigs of ram, because the memory management is better then it is in xp. i'm having no problems - i've got a quad core cpu, 2 gb ram, gf 8800 gts superclocked - have no problems, but in huge battles i see the frames dropping and there is no notable difference beteween me (quadcore) and the dual core of my friend next to me (he has almost the same system as me). we were viewing the same battle in an lan-game. so thats why i'm asking this.

There is no evidence to support Vista running games faster than XP, in actual fact it is the reverse due to the OS overhead and poor driver optimisation. Hopefully that will change at some point.

If games are designed to work with multi-cores then do single core users suffer?

Only in that they can't take advantage of the "split" in threads. (You run worse than dual core, but not worse than if it were single core programmed... well, depending on how it was done not much worse)