How much impact does a processor have on gaming?
So... say I have a Core2Duo 6300 1.86GHz; and then a GeForce 9600GT
Then on that setup I play a game like The Witcher 2 but it is laggy even on lowest graphics.
If I now upgrade the graphics card, will the game run faster, or is it the processors fault?
Thanks!
Since everyone's giving conflicting information here, there's no real concrete answer as to what would help improve your performance in every game out there. Most developers out there code for the biggest userbase with the most mid-range hardware to help make sure that the game runs fine on all computers (Valve and Blizzard are two examples). Others, like CD Projekt Red, took the Crysis route and chose not to optimise things so that the game could run on lower-end hardware because they developed the game to take advantage of specific technologies. They wanted better visuals and the chance to let gamers who spent a lot of money on their rigs feel satisfied that those purchase choices were well-made. That's why Crytek had to create a DX11 patch for Crysis 2 because they knew the inevitable backlash by high-end gamers would be huge if they left the game in DX9 mode.
Consider, though, the problem that your platform has. You're using a Core 2 Duo chip that wasn't the most popular one and is strapped for L3 cache. You're sitting with an aged GPU that today is closer to a GT440 than anything else in terms of performance. You're on a barely supported platform these days (LGA775) with chipsets and on-board hardware that probably hasn't received an update in years. You're probably even using DDR2 RAM, something that most devs don't account for these days because DDR3 is the mainstream product and has higher transfer rates (and its what their dev computers and even console kits are shipped with). Your hard drive probably bottlenecks things in its own way with lowered transfer rates because you've been using it daily for years.
As a whole, your platform brings performance down in a big way. You'd only see notable improvements by swinging things in one direction - upgrading to a Core i3 with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and keeping your GPU and running things at medium-to-low settings at 720p resolution. The bottom line is that at your current settings there's not enough muscle or bandwidth to feed either the GPU or the CPU with the information it needs. By playing it at low settings and resolution you're pushing more work onto your CPU to provide the muscle to perform the code executions to make things go smoothly.
If you want a refresh and better performance, you have to do an entire upgrade. There's various low-cost options for you if you want to go this route and it doesn't have to break the bank. Hell, you could partly finance it by considering selling your existing rig, although you may find a better use for it in another capacity besides gaming. But mostly, you're between four to six hardware generations behind the curve and its time to get back up to speed.
A quad is needed to game. Even a slow quad core is better than a fast dual core.
That's not exactly true. There's a tipping point where it makes little difference moving onto a quad-core when you're on a fast dual-core. Intel's proved that point with the Core i3 and even the Sandy Bridge Pentiums lacking Hyper-threading, by kitting them out with decent speeds, improved instruction sets, better efficiency and enough L3 cache to not hurt performance. AMD did that too to a point with Bulldozer, since the FX-4100 performs similarly to the Core i3-2120 despite it being a quad-core.
You don't need a quad-core for acceptable gaming performance these days, but it is optional. Balanced rigs still get things right (even cheaper ones) and its all about planning for the future and the resolution you're playing on, and at what settings.
. Sorry man.
