Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace & FreeSpace Open Support => Topic started by: Stilljoe7 on August 09, 2010, 06:57:50 pm

Title: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: Stilljoe7 on August 09, 2010, 06:57:50 pm
its got a multi-core cpu so the game ends up bogging down one core and becomes rather unplayable.

Can anyone say more about this?  I'm curious. I get excellent framerates (essentially, 60 with Vsync, 100+ without - unless there are two Karunas on screen but even then, 40+). Turning on 16x AA (nvidia control panel) doesn't make it worse, and does make things prettier.
Running a debug build, interestingly, does slow things down significantly. Should it?

But I still have an awful motion judder when turning - ever since much earlier builds, like 3.6.can't remember - 8? I have not been able to determine the cause.

Athlon 7850 dual core @ 2.8, nvidia GTX 260, lots of memory on Windows 7 x64. Affinity for the FS2 executable is set to CPU 0.

Edited to include log file.

[attachment deleted by ninja]
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on August 09, 2010, 07:04:24 pm
FS2_Open only uses one core.  It can be changed but there is no reason to.  So there should be no issues running on multcore systems,   The only way there should be a possible issues is if there is some other intense process using the same core.
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: jr2 on August 10, 2010, 08:51:03 am
On a lark, try setting the affinity to CPU1?  Then CPU0, which apparently is being used by something power hungry, will be free.
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: Fury on August 10, 2010, 11:25:50 am
On multi-core PC's FSO should automatically uses second core. So affinity is by default set to CPU1. Debug builds are significantly slower.
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: The E on August 10, 2010, 12:21:02 pm
Yep, debug builds are just slower than release builds due to the additional amount of error checking they perform.
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: Stilljoe7 on August 10, 2010, 06:53:08 pm
Yep, Freespace 2 has defaulted to CPU1.

The only other things running as a rule are Windows Services and Trend Micro - which I guess could be shut down but I can't imagine it's using a huge amount of processor.

I guess I'll have to live with the judder. I know there have been similar posts with no apparent resolution.

Understood on the debug build being slower, thanks.
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on August 10, 2010, 08:02:25 pm
Well you could try changing the core it runs on.  Normally it's not recommended to do so but if you want to try you will need to edit the registry.  You will need to navigate to HK Local Machine - Software - Voilition and add a DWORD called ProcessorAffinity and set the value to use.  Values have never been totally confirmed but it should be something like this:

1=Core0
2=Core1
4=Core2
8=Core3
16=Core4
etc. 
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: Zacam on August 10, 2010, 08:53:40 pm
On a single core P4 (hyper threading disabled OR enabled) vs an Athlon X2 of the same clock speed, I don't there being any difference in terms of performance when all other hardware is identical (ddr2 ram, same gfx card, etc)

That being said, I also don't see any significant gains going form an X2 to an Athlon or Phenom X4 or the latest X6.
/me shrugs
Title: Re: FS2 and multi-core issues?
Post by: pecenipicek on August 10, 2010, 09:30:08 pm
On a single core P4 (hyper threading disabled OR enabled) vs an Athlon X2 of the same clock speed, I don't there being any difference in terms of performance when all other hardware is identical (ddr2 ram, same gfx card, etc)

That being said, I also don't see any significant gains going form an X2 to an Athlon or Phenom X4 or the latest X6.
/me shrugs
for FSO no, definitely not, but with the number of cores increasing, your ability to multitask expands as well.

also, renderingrenderingRENDEEEERIIIING!!!!!11



i'm still regretting the day i got rid of my original phenom (9500)... "dual cores will give me better performance in games!"...


my sweet sweeeeet ass.