I believe I have a triple core processor but not sure...

[blade2k5]

Christmas Day 2011 my pc's motherboard died and finally got it back last week when my son [who built the pc to begin with] brought it back with a new motherboard which I think he said had a triple core processor.  Anyways, not being tech savvy and not knowing one motherboard from another, I do have the specs for the system which are;

AMD Athlon 11x3 455
3.30GHz processor
3.25 gb RAM
250gb HD + 2tb external HD
Windows XP Pro
Not sure about the video card, it's the same one I've had since my son built this pc five years ago.
Soundblaster sound card.


I haven't re-installed SC4 yet because  I know the game is finicky when it comes to multiple cores and I do not know how to make the game use only one, if this is of course a triple core processor I now have.  Since I no longer make DEM based maps because my Photoshop Elements disk mysteriously disappeared and I can't make 16bit gray-scale pngs at this time, I desperately want to play the game since I have basically nothing else to do on the computer.

So in closing, how the heck do I make the game read only one processor?  Oh, and because I'm dumb, pictures would most likely help.

[Tarkus]

Hi Troy--good to see you around these parts, and glad the computer's back up and going.   Yes, you do indeed have a triple-core processor.  (Actually, many triple-cores are really quad-cores with the 4th disabled--in some cases, you can actually enable it if you're tech-savvy or have someone tech-savvy doing it). 

Most folks with multi-core processors use the -CPUCount flag to the shortcut (see here).  I have a dual-core AMD Athlon X2 myself in this laptop, but I don't have that flag, and I haven't really experienced much if any crashing due to the core issues.  I actually have fewer crashing issues than I did running a single-core on Windows XP SP2. 

I'm also on Windows 7, and I've set the "Compatibility" to "Windows XP SP2" on the game's shortcut, and that seems to have helped keep the game stable. 

-Alex

[blade2k5]

Hi Troy--good to see you around these parts, and glad the computer's back up and going.   Yes, you do indeed have a triple-core processor.  (Actually, many triple-cores are really quad-cores with the 4th disabled--in some cases, you can actually enable it if you're tech-savvy or have someone tech-savvy doing it). 

Most folks with multi-core processors use the -CPUCount flag to the shortcut (see here).  I have a dual-core AMD Athlon X2 myself in this laptop, but I don't have that flag, and I haven't really experienced much if any crashing due to the core issues.  I actually have fewer crashing issues than I did running a single-core on Windows XP SP2. 

I'm also on Windows 7, and I've set the "Compatibility" to "Windows XP SP2" on the game's shortcut, and that seems to have helped keep the game stable. 

-Alex

Thanks a bunch Tarkus.  Glad to be back actually after having to use an Asus EE 10 inch laptop or whatever the heck it is.  I hated that darn thing, to small and no disk drive.  I suppose I have to install the game first then do the code thing you linked me to?

EDIT:  Installed the game and the two patches [sc4 and BAt patches] and everything seems to be running smoothly, though I haven't actually began working on a city just yet.  Anyways, I have the code for the shortcut in case the game gets finicky with my new system.