Disablin HT helped?

[Barso 10]

I disabled hyperthreading in my BIOS and it has really helped the framerate.

But what advantages does HT give me and what disadvantages will disabling it do to ther games and programs?

I am running a corei7 with a GTX295 and 6GB ram with windows 7 ultimate.

[no use for a name 0]

well since very few programs effectively use multiple cores, much less 8, you're probably not going to see any difference; unless you run cpu-intensive software like 3D rendering, video editing/compression, etc.

[bangtail 0]

I disabled hyperthreading in my BIOS and it has really helped the framerate.

But what advantages does HT give me and what disadvantages will disabling it do to ther games and programs?

I am running a corei7 with a GTX295 and 6GB ram with windows 7 ultimate.

All you need to do is add -cpucount=4 to your command line. No need to disable it in the BIOS anymore.

Eth

[Barso 10]

Thanks ethne.

Sorry for being an idiot but where is the command line?

Is that the shortcut in the properties window

[IrishCoffe 10]

All you need to do is add -cpucount=4 to your command line. No need to disable it in the BIOS anymore.

Eth

On i7 platform MAKE SURE to disable HT.

Well. At this stage, october 2009 playing ARMA2 with HT on, will for sure permanently damage uor CPU ( if certain condition are meeted ).

( and u Barso are in this parentheses )

Possibly....

HT introduces a chance of cache thrashing (pretty high chance). Basically that means that your CPU is spiking as it's constantly hammering the cache which causes fragmented gameplay (stalls, fps spikes, etc)

Edited October 25, 2009 by IrishCoffe

[bangtail 0]

On i7 platform MAKE SURE to disable HT.

( and u Barso are in this parentheses )

Not sure what you are trying to say but you are of course, WRONG.

In my case the command line solves the problem completely.

I monitor my CPU all the time and if I remove the line, the CPU does indeed thrash but there is NO NEED to disable HT in the BIOS (Obviously, this is in my own experience so I can't speak for everyone).

As far as damaging my CPU, no chance of that unless it gets too hot. That's not likely in my case as hours of Prime doesn't put me over 55.

Eth

Edited October 25, 2009 by BangTail

[IrishCoffe 10]

Not sure what you are trying to say but you are of course, WRONG.

In my case the command line solves the problem completely.

I monitor my CPU all the time and if I remove the line, the CPU does indeed thrash but there is NO NEED to disable HT in the BIOS (Obviously, this is in my own experience so I can't speak for everyone).

As far as damaging my CPU, no chance of that unless it gets too hot. That's not likely in my case as hours of Prime doesn't put me over 55.

Eth

Assuming Im not talking with a FAE engineer and/or a tech from a related R&D research departement "sure why, not". 2 word's: resource contention.

[bangtail 0]

Assuming Im not talking with a FAE engineer and/or a tech from a related R&D research departement "sure why, not". 2 word's: resource contention.

Yes, and as I have already explained, you don't need to disable HT in the BIOS with regards to A2.

You're new here so you missed the 100's of posts prior to this thread commenting on the very same thing.

Eth

---------- Post added at 05:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:55 PM ----------

Thanks ethne.

Sorry for being an idiot but where is the command line?

Is that the shortcut in the properties window

Right click on your A2 shortcut and select properties and add -cpucount=4 to your command line.

Should look like this :

"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -cpucount=4

(Where C:\ is your root drive)

[Barso 10]

That is frightening that that happens.

Is there any other games that this happens?

Thanks for the help, glad that a change in the command line means that HT will not be disabled in all games.

BI obviously did not have HT in mind when developing A2.

Is it better to disable HT in bios or use the command line?

[kklownboy 43]

All you need to do is add -cpucount=4 to your command line. No need to disable it in the BIOS anymore.

Eth

it is better to disable it in bios. You will never use the extra"cores" in any regular window app, and never in anygame. ever. They make your cpu hotter, they will bog down nvidia cards in some situations. If you do VM, or uber Encoding you may get some usage out of them... They can and do clog up the L# cache for some progs that dont know how to handle all the "cores"

[Barso 10]

I have heard that windows 7 utilizes HT.

But thanks, I think I will disable it in bios.

[bangtail 0]

it is better to disable it in bios. You will never use the extra"cores" in any regular window app, and never in anygame. ever. They make your cpu hotter, they will bog down nvidia cards in some situations. If you do VM, or uber Encoding you may get some usage out of them... They can and do clog up the L# cache for some progs that dont know how to handle all the "cores"

Never had any issues (except A2) and I use the cores for editing etc so disabling them is not an option.

As for heat, maybe 4 or 5 degrees but nothing to worry about.

Secondly, your statement about HT and games is incorrect. GTA 4 is 50% faster with HT enabled and FC2 29% faster with HT enabled. Conversely UT3 is slower as is WIC but it totally disproves your claim that it doesn't help in "any game, ever".

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/archspeed-2009-4-p2.html

Eth

---------- Post added at 07:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:52 PM ----------

I have heard that windows 7 utilizes HT.

But thanks, I think I will disable it in bios.

Win 7 is optimized for HT.

If all you do is game it wont hurt to turn it off in the BIOS but I've never had trouble with it in anything other than ArmA 2 and the cpucount switch fixes that.

I didn't invest in i7s just so I could disable one of their major features.

Eth

Edited October 25, 2009 by BangTail

[fish44 0]

I presume HT issue discussed above only aplies to i7 technology ?

[bangtail 0]

I presume HT issue discussed above only aplies to i7 technology ?

Yes mate.

[Joseph Troska 0]

My god.... I run an i7 920 at stock (2.67ghz) speed, with 6GB RAM and Vista64 Home, and a 4870x2.

I had never thought about disabling HT until I read this thread, and saw some users suggesting keeping HT enabled can not only decrease performance, but can also potentially damage your system.

Well I disabled HT in BIOS, and the first thing I noticed in ArmA2 was the loading time. Before when I used to load savegames, it took HEAPS of time to load/receiving the mission. Now that I have disabled HT, the time it takes to load each mission along with time taken in the 'Receiving' screen is almost instantaneous. I haven't noticed a huge FPS difference, but everything just feels heaps smoother overall.

Anyone reading this thread who has an i7 should immediately disable HT in BIOS.

[bangtail 0]

My god.... I run an i7 920 at stock (2.67ghz) speed, with 6GB RAM and Vista64 Home, and a 4870x2.

I had never thought about disabling HT until I read this thread, and saw some users suggesting keeping HT enabled can not only decrease performance, but can also potentially damage your system.

Well I disabled HT in BIOS, and the first thing I noticed in ArmA2 was the loading time. Before when I used to load savegames, it took HEAPS of time to load/receiving the mission. Now that I have disabled HT, the time it takes to load each mission along with time taken in the 'Receiving' screen is almost instantaneous. I haven't noticed a huge FPS difference, but everything just feels heaps smoother overall.

Anyone reading this thread who has an i7 should immediately disable HT in BIOS.

No, they shouldn't and you will NOT damage your CPU @ stock. That would only happen if you were running a very heavy OC (with inadequate cooling) and you managed to burn the CPU. It's truly appalling that one misinformed person makes an erroneous statement and all of a sudden it's accepted as fact. Do you really think that Intel sells a CPU that is so easily damaged by one of it's main selling points?

Too many "experts" on the web these days who talk a lot of nonsense.

The main reason alot of OCers talk smack about HT is because it interferes with their ability to maintain high OC's, and subsequently, their ability to brag about their uber FPS in COD 4. i7's weren't designed to run @ 4.2 Ghz, thats why they can be unstable at that speed (HT only adds to this as it boosts the temperature).

Why did you even buy an i7 if you are going to turn HT off? You might as well have bought a C2Q.

The -cpucount switch will do EXACTLY the same thing (As far as ArmA 2 goes) without gimping your PC.

Eth

Edited October 26, 2009 by BangTail

[IrishCoffe 10]

No, they shouldn't and you will NOT damage your CPU @ stock. That would only happen if you were running a very heavy OC (with inadequate cooling) and you managed to burn the CPU. It's truly appalling that one misinformed person makes an erroneous statement and all of a sudden it's accepted as fact. Do you really think that Intel sells a CPU that is so easily damaged by one of it's main selling points?

Too many "experts" on the web these days who talk a lot of nonsense.

The main reason alot of OCers talk smack about HT is because it interferes with their ability to maintain high OC's, and subsequently, their ability to brag about their uber FPS in COD 4. i7's weren't designed to run @ 4.2 Ghz, thats why they can be unstable at that speed (HT only adds to this as it boosts the temperature).

Why did you even buy an i7 if you are going to turn HT off? You might as well have bought a C2Q.

The -cpucount switch will do EXACTLY the same thing without gimping your PC.

Eth

Look, first off u cant switch OFF HTT while u are running uor system, mainly because u had to wirte a flag in the PCI SPACE and then sequentially reboot it for make the change effective.

A simple restriction, which define and therefore simulate how many physical/logical core have the application at his disposal it's not enought for establish who wirte on the cache, because as we know if a thread wirte on the same cache line referenced by some other threads, the entry cache line is invalidated and as to be loaded again from the memory.

Things happening ppl Ocing and the game is taxing, having rendundant code which saturate the memory bandwidth, not only make trashing more cache but as Bulldogs said it hammering too the internal memory processor.

[bangtail 0]

Look, first off u cant switch OFF HTT while u are running uor system, mainly because u had to wirte a flag in the PCI SPACE and then sequentially reboot it for make the change effective.

A simple restriction, which define and therefore simulate how many physical/logical core have the application at his disposal it's not enought for establish who wirte on the cache, because as we know if a thread wirte on the same cache line referenced by some other threads, the entry cache line is invalidated and as to be loaded again from the memory.

Things happening ppl Ocing and the game is taxing, having rendundant code which saturate the memory bandwidth, not only make trashing more cache but as Bulldogs said it hammering too the internal memory processor.

Whatever, I'm not going to debate with you.

The switch alleviates the problem in A2 thus not requiring HT to be disabled in the BIOS. If you want to gimp your PC, that's your business but stop making crap up and misleading people with nonsense like "HT usage physically damages the CPU" for example.

/end of

Eth

Edited October 26, 2009 by BangTail

[IrishCoffe 10]

Whatever, I'm not going to debate with you.

The switch alleviates the problem from in A2 and does not require it to be disabled in the BIOS. If you want to gimp your PC, thats your business but stop making crap up like HT usage physically damaging the CPU for example.

/end of

Eth

HT doest damage any CPU.

Improper use of threading methodology DOES.

[bangtail 0]

HT doest damage any CPU.

Improper use of threading methodology DOES.

That's not what you said.

Well. At this stage, october 2009 playing ARMA2 with HT on, will for sure permanently damage uor CPU ( if certain condition are meeted ).

At any rate lets just agree to disagree and not derail the thread any further.

Eth

[IrishCoffe 10]

That's not what you said.

At any rate lets just agree to disagree and not derail the thread any further.

Eth

Well. At this stage, october 2009 playing ARMA2 with HT on, will for sure permanently damage uor CPU ( if certain condition are meeted ).

Are u serious?

[bangtail 0]

Are u serious?

What part of "agree to disagree" didn't you understand?

Eth

Edited October 26, 2009 by BangTail

[IrishCoffe 10]

What part of "agree to disagree" didn't you understand?

Eth

I m saying, that: ARMA make improper use of multi-threading technology.

Source:

Ninety-ninety rule

http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~n252/paper/Amdahl.pdf

http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/219349.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_sharing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_thrashing

Edited October 26, 2009 by IrishCoffe
ADDED MORE SOURCE

[bangtail 0]

I m saying, that: ARMA make improper use of multi-threading technology.

Source:

Ninety-ninety rule

The Ninety Ninety rule isn't a source.

You don't have any sources.

You have done a complete 180 vis a vis your original assertions.

I have asked you nicely to stop derailing the thread with stupidity. Should you choose to continue, I will be reporting it.

** EDIT **

Your sources don't validate your previous assertions. You are linking to definitions and are not proving your original point which was that using HT in A2 will PHYSICALLY damage your CPU. I'm not going to reply to you after this as you strike me as a bit of a time waster who has come here looking for an non existent argument.

Just to put it in context for you :

A2 DOES have problems when you don't use the -cpucount switch OR disable HT via the BIOS with the i5/i7 processor. Conversely, there is NO evidence that A2 has ever physically damaged anyone's CPU (Myself included as I ran my i7s with HT on before 1.3 and my CPUs are fine). Again, posting links to definitions does NOT prove your original claims.

Good evening,

Eth

Edited October 27, 2009 by BangTail

[Akilez 10]

I tried the -cpucount=x switch (several times) and my system never stabilized until I disabled HT while running ArmA 2. The HT setting and current drivers (191.07) have been the fix for me.

Since I reboot before/after an ArmA session anyway (process restoral) it's no problem to load a BIOS profile appropriate for what I'm doing. HT turns on as easily as it turns off.

Definitely try the -cpucount=x switch as this is the simplest solution if it works. If not run it w/o HT (applies to i7 and most i5 platforms only).

Your mileage may vary.

.

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