Question on Cores

I was just reading an article, and figure I would ask here because it is such a knowledgable community. The article said that even if you have a quad core processor, if a game isnt programmed to take advantage of multi cores then it is pointless and only uses one. I really am not well versed in this type of talk... but is this accurate? Is there any point to getting a multi core processor for games like WoW, EQ2, RIFT etc? Or would an very powerful single core do just as well?

and if ISBoxer lets you denote which cores to use, if a game doesnt have that capability built in does it still make use of it?

I hope I made sense with my questions.., again, pretty noobish with all the computer lingo. Doing my best to ask the question without sounding like an idiot

[lax]

Individual programs are usually not designed to take advantage of large numbers of CPU cores. Applications are generally linear in nature -- do this, then that, then this, than that, and so on. Programming for lots of cores requires the developer to identify lots of different things that can happen at the same time, and do it in such a way that does not compete with the other things for resources (because this competing means they can't happen at the same time, like how you have to form a line at the store even though there are several registers), etc. So if you're running a single program on your PC, say a music player app, it's most likely only going to take advantage of a single CPU core.

But we're not talking about a single program here, we're talking about 4 (for example) individual programs. When you have 4 individual programs and a 4-core CPU, you can reasonably expect each of those programs to put one of the cores to good use.

The article sounds correct. But it's not about multiboxing.

OK, got it.. makes sense. Thank you for dumbing it down so I could understand.

So running ISBoxer with the multi core option enabled, and using 5 instances in WoW let's say, definately increases performance even if the game itself doesnt support multicore stuff.

This accurate Lax?

[lax]

Yes, that's right.