ArmA uses only one core!

[cassus 0]

You guys who are getting surprizingly low fps in ArmA with your AMD x2 rigs, check if arma is actually using both cpu cores, cause mine is not. I have affinity set to both cpu0 and cpu1, but when i run the game, it always maxes at 50% cpu load, hence only one core. I have no freaking idea how to rectify this.. Anyone? Reason i know how much cpu load it uses is i got 2 monitors, and i have the task manager runing on second monitor so i can see it all the time. and 50% cpu constant..

Run ArmA and check the performance graph and you'll see it too, just alt tab out, one of the graphs is maxed, the other one zilch.

[maddogx 13]

I have the same "problem" with my 4600+ X2.

Explanation: A game will only use both cores if it was designed to do that. If it wasn't (like ArmA), it will only use one core. I don't think there are any games that were developed to utilise dual cores yet.

[sickboy 13]

There are only a few games that really support multi-core.

New incoming games more and more support it, but many do not.

Nowhere was advertised that ArmA would make use of 2 cores.

Your only benefit is that you probably have a slightly better performance than somebody with the same speed in mhz but single core cpu, simply because background programs and services can make use of the other cpu, altough they usually only take a couple of 0,1%'s of your performance anyway..

Dualcore, and multicore in general is something for past 2007 to be really into the mainstream market of not only hardware, but also software.

Make sure you install dualcore optimizer software for amd cpu's, as there have been reported problems with games that are bound to 2 cpu's in taskmanager, and then generate low fps.

[Jimboob 0]

Hopefully BIS will make this into a patch (once all the main bugs are fixed) with an option to turn it on or off.

[sickboy 13]

Hopefully BIS will make this into a patch (once all the main bugs are fixed) with an option to turn it on or off.

It's not very easy to do, there are many considerations, and having a complete coded engine for single core takes much effort and considerations to build over multiple cpu's, AFAIK...

I don't know what BIS officials have said about the matter, but my best advice is: Don't hope for it, but probably expect it in Game2.

[Mr_Tea 0]

I`m still playing with an single core processor, but it would be nice and effectiv if the AI could be handed over to the other core.

My next system will be atleast dual core, but time works for me and it can be a quad core system too.

[sickboy 13]

I`m still playing with an single core processor, but it would be nice and effectiv if the AI could be handed over to the other core.

My next system will be atleast dual core, but time works for me and it can be a quad core system too.

Jup but this discussion is already made in other threads anyway... There are many advantages for dual and multi core, but implementation methods for games are hard and need various experience and a new thinking model

[feersum.endjinn 6]

At least Nvidia display drivers have dual core optimizations that throw rendering code running inside driver to other CPU if they recognize it's idling away, so it's not always like your other core isn't doing anything.

[sickboy 13]

At least Nvidia display drivers have dual core optimizations that throw rendering code running inside driver to other CPU if they recognize it's idling away, so it's not always like your other core isn't doing anything.

Ah, nice to know, didn't have an Nvidia card for 2-3 years now, nice feature!

[cassus 0]

Yeah i do see now that the other core is taking a little bit of the cpu hit. Probably cause i have an nvidia card. I guess hard disk loading from streaming terrain and stuff would maybe fall on the other cpu as well then?

Kinda sucks that dual cores for games are actually slower than single cores... One would think that there would be something that could just sorta...combine the two to do a little bit of the workload each, like with gfx cards in SLI mode.. Then again, that would just make too much freaking sense i guess.. If i knew this, i'd never have bought an x2 chip. Buying a cheaper cpu would probably give me an aditional 10fps or something. hehe. Oh well, thats what you get for assuming

[crashdome 3]

Who said dual cores are slower? I'm running a Core2 E6600 (2.4ghz) stock and it blew the pants off my old P4 2.8ghz w/ HT and moving everything up from DDR2 to DDR3 and a 6800 to a 7600GT literally doubled my performance (wasn't really expecting that much) and I am not talking just FPS here... I am talking it doubled everything. Probably because it is also more efficient... but I digress...

You have to remember that the OS can task background processes to an idle cpu core. You maybe cannot spread the game thread across multiple cpus but the OS can keep the crap that bogs games down from interfering.

Try running any game and a virus scan on a single core (even with HT) and then do the same on a Core2Duo... it's like the virus scan isn't even running.... not that I typically virus scan during gaming sessions, but I can if I want to now.

[sickboy 13]

Who said dual cores are slower? I'm running a Core2 E6600 (2.4ghz) stock and it blew the pants off my old P4 2.8ghz w/ HT and moving everything up from DDR2 to DDR3 and a 6800 to a 7600GT literally doubled my performance (wasn't really expecting that much) and I am not talking just FPS here... I am talking it doubled everything. Probably because it is also more efficient... but I digress...

You have to remember that the OS can task background processes to an idle cpu core. You maybe cannot spread the game thread across multiple cpus but the OS can keep the crap that bogs games down from interfering.

Try running any game and a virus scan on a single core (even with HT) and then do the same on a Core2Duo...  it's like the virus scan isn't even running.... not that I typically virus scan during gaming sessions, but I can if I want to now.

You are forgetting something very important.

Intel Core 2 is a new CPU, they jumped from the netburst P4 technology, to a combination of the Pentium Mobile and P4, best of both worlds... (Pentium mobile is just a progression on the pentium 3 base actually). IPC (Instructions per clock) has been improved like crazy amongst many other things.

It's the same reason why an Athlon 64 2000mhz  (3500+) kicks the butt of an Intel P4 ~ 3.5ghz But in simple terms, an ~ 1.8ghz Core 2 will kick the Athlon's butt.

Of coarse dual core makes your system faster, there can now be done 2 operations at the same time, but ingame performance for games that do not support dualcore, do not go much up as system processes and services usually only use small percentages of your system and they dont have that much impact, of coarse all depending on what you have running in the background and if you like to do more than 1 thing at the same time.

In case of nvidia videocards the render code can be ran on the other cpu as fear already replied, but how much performance that gives extra...hummm

In simple terms... dual core is nice, but doesnt give you really higher performance in games that don't support it.

General windows performance and multitasking is ofcoarse a load higher.

Just never compare:

Intel P4, Intel P-M, Intel Core, Intel Core 2, Athlon XP, Athlon 64 (K8), and the upcoming K8L core with eachother based on Mhz/Ghz, as all the cores perform different (aswell as in different areas) on the same amount of mhz.

BTW, DDR3 isn't out yet in the consumer market for pc RAM m8... don't know where you got that idea from. Only Graphics DDR3 (GDDR3 and 4 aswell etc.) is out and that's on videocards not on the RAM of your system

6800 to 7600 gave a lot more performance not just for RAM but also due to a completely upgraded core/engine etc. etc. Altough 6800 was high performance range, while 7600 is mid performance range, still due to the new things on board and depending on what you do with it, it performs better!

[cassus 0]

Who said dual cores are slower? I'm running a Core2 E6600 (2.4ghz) stock and it blew the pants off my old P4 2.8ghz w/ HT and moving everything up from DDR2 to DDR3 and a 6800 to a 7600GT literally doubled my performance (wasn't really expecting that much) and I am not talking just FPS here... I am talking it doubled everything. Probably because it is also more efficient... but I digress...

You have to remember that the OS can task background processes to an idle cpu core. You maybe cannot spread the game thread across multiple cpus but the OS can keep the crap that bogs games down from interfering.

Try running any game and a virus scan on a single core (even with HT) and then do the same on a Core2Duo...  it's like the virus scan isn't even running.... not that I typically virus scan during gaming sessions, but I can if I want to now.

I said dual cores are slower.. one core of a 4600 x2 is a 2300... and well, thats slow. at least compared to the faster single core cpu's. The background tasks on a clean computer dont really amount to much either. And if you have antivirus running in the background while you're playing, you're a dick thats gonna slow you down no matter how many cpu's you have, cause the loading time of a map is gonna be a year and a half

I jumped from an old xp2000+ with a gig and a half of ram, and a ATI X800 card to a x2 2600 (EDIT: Yeah i ment 4600..) with a geforce 7800 and 2 gigs of ram, and i did get a fair improvement in performance, but nothing like double. Well at least not in games. Other apps maybe, but photoshop and stuff like that has been running smooth as silk for years, so not really noticable.

Not adding support for multiple cpu's in newer games is kinda tarded tho.. Not like multiple cpu's came out yesterday. Been out for more than a year now, or thereabouts, havent they? Don't think we are going to see single core cpu's popping out any time soon either. You can only push the one chip performance so far before it don't go any higher, and they seem to have reached a limiting factor now.. So... get some multi cpu support going.. It's gonna suck tenfold on a quad cpu rig. Sitting there with a 10ghz rig when all you're getting is 2.5ghz worth of power sorta blows.. In a "i'm back in 2002" sorta way.

[evo6tme 0]

slightly off topic,but how do u tell seperate procesor load for core2 duo procesors ?

[JackHorner 0]

My arma uses at max 70 to 90% of my cpu after patching my hyper threading. I have a p4 3.4 ghz hyper threaded cpu.

I just wanted to let you guys know that both amd and intel have released dual core patches. Intel's is in beta stages and will be official in service pack three. You can download them now and they really do help. The patch is for all Intel dual core cpu's.

Just remember that Intel's is in beta so it could cause problems, there is an easy way to disable it if you run into problems, just follow the link and read all about it on Microsoft's site before installing it to find out how.

You can find Intels dual core patch here.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=501985

And here is AMDs dual core optimizer

http://www.amd.com/us-en....00.html

[sickboy 13]

My arma uses at max 70 to 90% of my cpu after patching my hyper threading. I have a p4 3.4 ghz hyper threaded cpu.

Great that you went to such usage, and nice links!

Must add that AFAIK hyperthreading is dynamic and does not always mean a 50/50 spread, as such it might be possible that's why you got those numbers, but I must admit that my knowledge is thin on Hyperthreading.

You checked if it really is ArmA that uses those %% and no other processes?

[Messiah 2]

slightly off topic,but how do u tell seperate procesor load for core2 duo procesors ?

ctrl-alt-del

under the performance tab it shoudl show you two CPU load charts if you have a dual core... and for that matter a Hyper Threaded chip as well...

[JackHorner 0]

My arma uses at max 70 to 90% of my cpu after patching my hyper threading. I have a p4 3.4 ghz hyper threaded cpu.

Great that you went to such usage, and nice links!

Must add that AFAIK hyperthreading is dynamic and does not always mean a 50/50 spread, as such it might be possible that's why you got those numbers, but I must admit that my knowledge is thin on Hyperthreading.

You checked if it really is ArmA that uses those %% and no other processes?

Yeah I just checked right now by running a small mission, I have dual monitors and opened up the task manager to watch the cpu.

In the small mission it went up to 70% cpu. Im positive it was arma and not other tasks.

I originally got this HT patch after installing the new splinter cell game. They actually told people to do it in their forums. It helped amazingly with that game. My friend installed the optimization as well and has reported an improvement in most games. I wish I could tell you a before and after performance result of arma but I installed this patch before I got arma so I cant tell.

[sickboy 13]

Yeah I just checked right now by running a small mission, I have dual monitors and opened up the task manager to watch the cpu.

In the small mission it went up to 70% cpu. Im positive it was arma and not other tasks.

Why watch the Performance tab m8, you can check the process tab, make sure you can see the CPU collumn and then check how much arma.exe is taking and not the whole system then check if any other process is taking parts.

[JackHorner 0]

Yeah I just checked right now by running a small mission, I have dual monitors and opened up the task manager to watch the cpu.

In the small mission it went up to 70% cpu. Im positive it was arma and not other tasks.

Why watch the Performance tab m8, you can check the process tab, make sure you can see the CPU collumn and then check how much arma.exe is taking and not the whole system then check if any other process is taking parts.

I just ran it again, this time I watched the CPU column. Arma was hovering around the 60 to 70% mark in the small mission. I don't have many other processes. I saw a few taking 1% but not really anything more.

One thing I did notice was that at graphicly intensive times my cpu would crank up by 10% and when that was over it would fall back down and then repeat.

Anyways im pretty sure it helps, with me at least. These optimizers have different boosts in performance depending on what proc you have.

[sickboy 13]

I just ran it again, this time I watched the CPU column. Arma was hovering around the 60 to 70% mark in the small mission. I don't have many other processes. I saw a few taking 1% but not really anything more.

One thing I did notice was that at graphicly intensive times my cpu would crank up by 10% and when that was over it would fall back down and then repeat.

Anyways im pretty sure it helps, with me at least. These optimizers have different boosts in performance depending on what proc you have.

Ok, btw the 10% could be the earlier mentioned shaderprogramming of the graphics card, thanks for the effort m8. But don't think the optimizers have anything to do with Hyperthreading unless you have a dual core with hyperthreading The Optimizers are to fix a problem when having a dual core processor, as 2 cores have both their own TSC (clock), but there is no guarantee that these clocks are synchronised, the dualcore optimizer etc fixes this problem or uses a workaround for it (not sure). Games that read the TSC directly and not through windows, should work better because of this.

The manual fix before was to manually bind the gameprocess on 1 cpu (Affinity), so there would be only 1 TSC that would be used, as windows switches the game process around over the cpus when the process is assigned to both cpu's (default).

Sidenote: AMD However prepped their AM2 socket for Reversed Hyperthreading, as you might guess ... this means that a single thread can be spread over 2 cpu's and so use the power of both.. But this feature is not implemented or activated yet.

[JackHorner 0]

I just ran it again, this time I watched the CPU column. Arma was hovering around the 60 to 70% mark in the small mission. I don't have many other processes. I saw a few taking 1% but not really anything more.

One thing I did notice was that at graphicly intensive times my cpu would crank up by 10% and when that was over it would fall back down and then repeat.

Anyways im pretty sure it helps, with me at least. These optimizers have different boosts in performance depending on what proc you have.

Ok, thanks for the effort m8. But don't think the patches have anything to do with Hyperthreading unless you have a dual core with hyperthreading The Optimizers are to fix a problem when having a dual core processor, as 2 cores have both their own TSC (clock), but there is no guarantee that these clocks are synchronised, the dualcore optimizer etc fixes this problem or uses a workaround for it (not sure). Games that read the TSC directly and not through windows, should work better because of this.

The manual fix before was to manually bind the gameprocess on 1 cpu (Affinity), so there would be only 1 TSC that would be used, as windows switches the game process around over the cpus when the process is assigned to both cpu's (default).

Sidenote: AMD However prepped their AM2 socket for Reversed Hyperthreading, as you might guess ... this means that a single thread can be spread over 2 cpu's and so use the power of both.. But this feature is not implemented or activated yet.

Well maybe I don't understand what they are saying here, but im pretty sure that they consider a HT proc a dual core and thus would benefit from the patch.

What do you make of this?

Taken from the dual core patch section

Quote[/b] ]MORE INFORMATION

Windows XP SP2 is required on computers that have multiple CPUs that support ACPI processor performance states. This requirement includes computers that support the following items:

• Multiple physical sockets

• Multiple-core designs

• Multiple logical threads, such as Intel hyper-threading technology

Because Windows XP was not originally designed to support performance states on multiprocessor configurations, changes are required to correctly realize this support on multiprocessor systems. Windows XP Service Pack 2 includes the required changes to the kernel power manager. These changes make sure that Windows XP correctly functions on multiprocessor systems with processor performance states.

[sickboy 13]

Well maybe I don't understand what they are saying here, but im pretty sure that they consider a HT proc a dual core and thus would benefit from the patch.

What do you make of this?

Taken from the dual core patch section

Well, reading that text, you are right that it also patches on HyperThreading. Must mean then that a Hyperthreading processor has 2 TSC's then aswell I guess

Thanks for sharing!

[Jacques.E.F.M.Paganel 0]

As it might have been said elsewhere, the second core may prove beneficial for playing/testing MP missions, if  you have to serve them yourself on the same computer. Then it might be faster to run a dedicated server (i.e. a separate thread) on the second core, rather than creating a multiplayer game from within the ARMA client.

Those OFP:R users who have a dualcore CPUs should be able to correct me on this.

[Hammer Schultz 0]

I said dual cores are slower.. one core of a 4600 x2 is a 2300... and well, thats slow. at least compared to the faster single core cpu's.

Ummm it doesn't work that way. AMD64 X2 3800+ dualcore processor has two cores running at 1.8Ghz each. AMD64 3700+ singlecore processor (earlier 954 socket model) has 1 core at 2.0Ghz

Yet thanks to the new socket, extra cache etc. even the single core of X2 processor is faster than the single core of a AMD64 3700+