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Author Topic: Miraculous multi-cores  (Read 20774 times)
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Aces
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« on: October 30, 2013, 01:40:16 PM »

I've actually done quite a bit to try and improve my FPS recently, cleaned the registry, defragged the discs, removed as many background apps and services as possible, tried CPU infinity and priority settings and disabling CPU parking and reduced all windows appearance settings. Cleaned the memory, overclocked CPU and/or GPU a little, reduced in-game graphics setting and nvidia settings and reduced resolution as much possible but the FPS increase, if there is one at all, is absolutely tiny.

So my 2.5GHz Quad core + 4 GB RAM + Nvidia GTX550TI just won't cut the mustard with this game anymore even in smallish engagements. I have to wonder if there is some sort of memory leak as performance in the game drops off even more the longer you play it and the same thing happens with Steel Fury after a while which makes life harder. It is a shame as, IMO, this is the best game of the genre that I've ever played. One thing that I have noticed is that say you have 11 FPS and then move around the map with the mouse the FPS can drop low and stay low at 6 FPS for example.

Cheers

Aces
« Last Edit: October 30, 2013, 01:48:53 PM by Aces » Logged


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cuca_
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« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2013, 01:51:00 PM »

It seems to me that this game has problems with multi-core processors, something like ToW series, processor has always been a bottleneck for that game.
Also I managed to gain back some performance by tweaking with the project lasso software.
http://bitsum.com/processlasso/
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chashka17
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« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2013, 03:15:34 PM »

Process lasso has been saving my gaming bacon since ToW2.   
'Windows dynamic thread priority boosts' seems to always cause me FPS problems, turning it off for games (via PL) has made games suddenly playable on more than one PC of mine.

I do feel the need to do a HW upgrade in the not too distant future but I really can't say when/how.  That said I don't expect GT to make their new project super-specs PC only.

We do not know what GT is doing to optimize things, & GT must have seen the problems on the release of the last iL2 iteration which it seemed very few people could actually  play becos of the HW reqs. 
That kind of thing would possibly be a financial disaster for GT.  I'm guessing a lot of fans especially in Eastern Europe haven't got the $ to throw at new rigs.  (not that the West is a whole lot better these days...) so GT will try to make the game accessible HW-wise.

Dane - I feared it might be a virtual paper-avalon hill type-game thing  WTF no eye-candy !!!   Drop & give me 20!    Shocked Grin Tongue
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Aces
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« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2013, 03:18:34 PM »

Hi, thanks for the link, I looked at process lasso briefly the other day. I will have a more in-depth look this weekend. I think that you might be correct regarding multi-core CPUs and the game, I've reached a similar conclussion. I have tried other CPU affinity settings without much difference in FPS. I think that the pan around the map and FPS slowdown thing where Framerates do not "recover" after stopping panning and stay lower is odd.

Cheers

Aces

Edit: Hi chashka17 I hope that you are right regarding the specification thing. I don't buy (or play) many games so I'm fortunate that I can still just about get by with my current hardware setup as there are not many "next gen" type games that I would be buying. Is there any particular tips for using process lasso that you recommend?. I shall try Windows dynamic thread priority boosts thing that looks promising. I don't really want great FPS, anything over 25 FPS consistently would do me if I could ever get it.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2013, 03:23:40 PM by Aces » Logged


"IL-2 MAT Manager" co-dev.,Silent Hunter III "Super Turms","Super Pens","Crew on Deck" ,Multi-Skin Bombers dev. Wings of Victory v2.10.
Gamefront: http://tinyurl.com/bpbaeyl
Mediafire: http://tinyurl.com/bn2aoqt
cuca_
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« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2013, 03:22:08 PM »

Process lasso has been saving my gaming bacon since ToW2.   
'Windows dynamic thread priority boosts' seems to always cause me FPS problems, turning it off for games (via PL) has made games suddenly playable on more than one PC of mine.

I do feel the need to do a HW upgrade in the not too distant future but I really can't say when/how.  That said I don't expect GT to make their new project super-specs PC only.

We do not know what GT is doing to optimize things, & GT must have seen the problems on the release of the last iL2 iteration which it seemed very few people could actually  play becos of the HW reqs. 
That kind of thing would possibly be a financial disaster for GT.  I'm guessing a lot of fans especially in Eastern Europe haven't got the $ to throw at new rigs.  (not that the West is a whole lot better these days...) so GT will try to make the game accessible HW-wise.


Hi, thanks for the link, I looked at process lasso briefly the other day. I will have a more in-depth look this weekend. I think that you might be correct regarding multi-core CPUs and the game, I've reached a similar conclussion. I have tried other CPU affinity settings without much difference in FPS. I think that the pan around the map and FPS slowdown thing where Framerates do not "recover" after stopping panning and stay lower is odd.

Cheers

Aces
Yeah and changing graphic setting for me doesnt makes any difference. Game works fine until thins start happening, and the more troops are involved in the battle the more lag I get---
Dane - I feared it might be a virtual paper-avalon hill type-game thing  WTF no eye-candy !!!   Drop & give me 20!    Shocked Grin Tongue

Close Combat - The Bloody First is coming next year and it's gonna be in 3D.

So far the only realstic, strategy-wargames that I know of and that I actually enjoyed next to the Achtung Panzer series are Theatre of War, Combat Mission and Close Combat series, and that's really it... nothing else on the market worth playing. If anyone knows any other similar game, please sare that info Smiley
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andrey12345
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« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2013, 03:24:42 PM »

It seems to me that this game has problems with multi-core processors, something like ToW series, processor has always been a bottleneck for that game.

GTOS dont have any problems on multi-core processors.

Also I managed to gain back some performance by tweaking with the project lasso software.
http://bitsum.com/processlasso/

Four donkey harnessed to a cart dragging it with the speed of the slowest donkey. Think about this Smiley

Not need to use strange programs, they don't gain speed.
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cuca_
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« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2013, 03:27:33 PM »

It seems to me that this game has problems with multi-core processors, something like ToW series, processor has always been a bottleneck for that game.

GTOS dont have any problems on multi-core processors.

Also I managed to gain back some performance by tweaking with the project lasso software.
http://bitsum.com/processlasso/

Four donkey harnessed to a cart dragging it with the speed of the slowest donkey. Think about this Smiley

Not need to use strange programs, they don't gain speed.


OK, It doesn't have problems with multicore but it's more likely that it doesn't utilize power of the multicore systems. It's does look that way. And, I actually gained few FPS with project lasso Smiley
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Aces
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« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2013, 03:38:17 PM »

I'm still going to try process lasso, a few frames for me could DOUBLE my framerate "down low n' dirty" in Shilovo. I let the game decide the best settings for me the other night and it pretty much maxed out everything, in fact its assessment 99.99% matched my chosen settings so, if the game thinks that my rig is capable of delivering playable framerates having accessed the capabilities of my rig, assuming that 6FPS isn't considered a playable framerate then where's the difference?.

Andrey, I know it is a loaded question but with my PC spec (Quad core 2.5GZ CPU  and 900MHz GPU) would you expect to see 6FPS in Shilovo?

Regards

Aces
« Last Edit: October 30, 2013, 03:41:33 PM by Aces » Logged


"IL-2 MAT Manager" co-dev.,Silent Hunter III "Super Turms","Super Pens","Crew on Deck" ,Multi-Skin Bombers dev. Wings of Victory v2.10.
Gamefront: http://tinyurl.com/bpbaeyl
Mediafire: http://tinyurl.com/bn2aoqt
andrey12345
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« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2013, 03:45:04 PM »

It seems to me that this game has problems with multi-core processors, something like ToW series, processor has always been a bottleneck for that game.

GTOS dont have any problems on multi-core processors.

Also I managed to gain back some performance by tweaking with the project lasso software.
http://bitsum.com/processlasso/

Four donkey harnessed to a cart dragging it with the speed of the slowest donkey. Think about this Smiley

Not need to use strange programs, they don't gain speed.


OK, It doesn't have problems with multicore but it's more likely that it doesn't utilize power of the multicore systems. It's does look that way. And, I actually gained few FPS with project lasso Smiley
Its not "real FPS" its like placebo, which are obtained as a measurement error, sorry.

Since 1960, found that, if 95% of the program can be parallelized, the theoretical maximum speedup using parallel computing would be approx 20 time, no matter how many processors are used. Is called Amdahl's law.
But games can't be parallelized at least 50% (in excellent case) in real world we have 5-30% in mass, this give to us need in 2-3 core (in best case) not more.

Think about this, surely if some small independent program would provide a gain of FPS, would the game developers (who make many  more and more complex programs) can not be directly inserted it into the game?  Cheesy
Well, purely logically think, can this program improve something is real or not Smiley

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Aces
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« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2013, 03:53:54 PM »

Hi Andrey placebo or not if gameplay is smoother and more fluid then I'll try it. I believe that there are measures one can take regarding closure of background processes and applications, disc-defrag, defragmenting/freeing memory etc.. which can improve framerates in a game.  I'm not hooked up on framerates only as a basic indicator of performance, 10FPS, 60FPS or whatever I don't care but I do know when gameplay is slow and un-responsive versus fluid gameplay.

There doesn't seem to be many, if any settings in the game that can be reduced to increase performance so it has to be CPU-bound IMHO.

My PC meets (CPU) and exceeds in other respects the recommended system requirements for Shilovo as printed on Graviteam's website, maybe the CPU spec. should be upped in this information to take into account developments in the game unless, of course, higher FPS are to be expected than I'm experiencing with this DLC. I can't believe that 5-6 FPS with the recommended CPU etc. could be considered as satisfying gameplay when drawing up these spec..
« Last Edit: October 30, 2013, 04:08:34 PM by Aces » Logged


"IL-2 MAT Manager" co-dev.,Silent Hunter III "Super Turms","Super Pens","Crew on Deck" ,Multi-Skin Bombers dev. Wings of Victory v2.10.
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Mediafire: http://tinyurl.com/bn2aoqt
andrey12345
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« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2013, 04:06:52 PM »

Hi Andrey placebo or not if gameplay is smoother and more fluid then I'll try it.

Yes I do not mind though. Just as it offers a real look at things Smiley
In the current state of multi-core, it is well suited to play in 2-4 games at the same time on the same PC. But it is bad to play in one game at 2-4 times faster. That's it.

And you can believe in anything, as some believe that DX11 allows to make a beautiful picture in the game than DX9 or OGL  Grin


I believe that there are measures one can take regarding closure of background processes and applications, disc-defrag, defragmenting/freeing memory etc.. which can improve framerates in a game. 

Its good, but Windows not real-time OS, all measures very dependend and vary from time to time. If FPS vary twice or more - you can _objective_ measure it, if on 5% its lower than measurment error.
But of course you can _subjective_ think of that was better  Grin
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Aces
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« Reply #11 on: October 30, 2013, 04:15:22 PM »

"Its good, but Windows not real-time OS, all measures very dependend and vary from time to time."

I agree Smiley

My FPS don't vary, I've re-tested the same "test" mission many times over many days, after a clean boot and at the end of the day and the FPS range is very much the same. the mission has lot's of dust so I tried reducing this setting to no effect, not even 1 FPS gained!. I decreased lighting, and textures quality in game, disabled the high texture pack as well for good measure but I have a 2GB video card FWIW. nothing has made a difference so it's not a graphics thing for me. But some of these settings are at least in part computational and I would expect that disabling or reducing them drastically would have at least a minor effect on reducing CPU loading and that is not the case for me. So it must be CPU IMO, 2.5GHz not enough to achieve sustain decent FPS/fluid gameplay. My only question regarding multi-core as opposed to CPU speed is is there any penalty using a multi-core CPU compared to a single core CPU of the same speed?. I appreciate that there's not necessarily any advantage in a multi-core CPU.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2013, 04:24:48 PM by Aces » Logged


"IL-2 MAT Manager" co-dev.,Silent Hunter III "Super Turms","Super Pens","Crew on Deck" ,Multi-Skin Bombers dev. Wings of Victory v2.10.
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Mediafire: http://tinyurl.com/bn2aoqt
andrey12345
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« Reply #12 on: October 30, 2013, 04:29:29 PM »

My FPS don't vary, I've re-tested the same "test" mission many times over many days, after a clean boot and at the end of the day and the FPS range is very much the same. the mission has lot's of dust so I tried reducing this setting to no effect, not even 1 FPS gained!. I decreased lighting, and textures quality in game, disabled the high texture pack as well for good measure but I have a 2GB video card FWIW. nothing has made a difference so it's not a graphics thing for me. But some of these settings are at least in part computational and I would expect that disabling or reducing them drastically would have at least a minor effect on reducing CPU loading and that is not the case for me.
All that you list, it is calculated mainly on the GPU. If the game delays in the calculations on the CPU (and when the number of units committed to 1000+ in them like in Shilovo with unlimited radius - it delays), disable graphical options does not make sense. You get bad picture and the same FPS. Programs like listed above dont help too.

So it must be CPU IMO, 2.5GHz not enough to achieve sustain decent FPS/fluid gameplay. My only question regarding multi-core as opposed to CPU speed is is there any penalty using a multi-core CPU compared to a single core CPU of the same speed?.

Now there was some strange situation. When the frequency is not growing, but improved architecture, and increases the number of cores (thank god only to 8  Grin ). So to say that are fasters is difficult. I think newest CPU (not in low-end) is better than oldest.
But more cache, more GHz and advanced architecture is the best choice.

P.S. For multi-core fans: Mius (64-bit version) is better parallelized and utilize more of core power Cheesy than GTOS in many many infantry units case especially.
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Aces
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« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2013, 05:11:58 PM »

Hi An drey, this isn't with 1000+ units it is with a handfull of units in a quick battle!.
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Dane49
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« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2013, 05:20:57 PM »

You might try this.I use this method occasionally when using the Ultra High grass setting.

Go to the options Time settings(7.0) and change them all to no action.
This enables you to up your game game speed and not have to keep upping the speed everytime something happens.
I usually only have to up the game speed to 1.5 to get everything to run good.
On the Summer maps about x2.

I also trim all the dust and smoke even at the lowest setting it still produces quite a bit.
Also,try enabling simple shaders and disable shading in the options.(you have to do both in tandem).
It's important that you enable simple shaders when disabling shading and the reverse applies also.Otherwise the game won't play right.
These two options menu tweeks make a big difference in FPS and the game still looks and plays decent.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2013, 06:05:00 PM by Dane49 » Logged
Schuck
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« Reply #15 on: October 30, 2013, 08:23:20 PM »

My input on this subject.
Ive been trying for a while to get to the bottom of this, but without success.
Ive had Fraps running and a CPU/Memory usage indicator running in the background.
At game speed 1.0-0.9 between 40-60FPS. Down to 0.5 @ 11FPS.
CPU usage is at 12%, memory at 18%. CPU increases to max 16% with as many units as i can cram into a QB all moving at the same time.
Dust and smoke seem to have an impact on FPS. As does the "brown grass", high polygons, i dont know? But knocks it down to about 8FPS.
Im guessing its not a CPU but more of a graphics issue.

What spec PC does Andrey have to run this game i wonder?
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andrey12345
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« Reply #16 on: October 30, 2013, 08:41:39 PM »

Something I already confused. If you have a FPS drops when a lot of smoke on screen, it is clear and it should be (actually there is such in any game where a lot of smoke). To reduce the negative effect is used decimation setting (as an option - lower screen resolution).
CPU or multi-core dont help in this case in any way only GPU with higher fillrate (or reduce fillrate through decrease dust/smoke density or resolution).

But as I understand on above posts - the problem is not in the smoke or dust? What to do with a multi-core?  Huh?
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Aces
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« Reply #17 on: October 30, 2013, 08:43:31 PM »

Thanks guys,

I did enable simple shaders, trimmed back dust and smoke and diabled shading and got about 3 FPS gain on average which more or less nudges me into double figures FPS-wise in Shilovo quick battle.

Guess my poor 'ol PC isn't really up to the taskm anymore.

Cheers

Aces
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"IL-2 MAT Manager" co-dev.,Silent Hunter III "Super Turms","Super Pens","Crew on Deck" ,Multi-Skin Bombers dev. Wings of Victory v2.10.
Gamefront: http://tinyurl.com/bpbaeyl
Mediafire: http://tinyurl.com/bn2aoqt
andrey12345
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« Reply #18 on: October 30, 2013, 08:45:54 PM »

Thanks guys,

I did enable simple shaders, trimmed back dust and smoke and diabled shading and got about 3 FPS gain on average which more or less nudges me into double figures FPS-wise in Shilovo quick battle.

Guess my poor 'ol PC isn't really up to the taskm anymore.

Cheers

Aces

And how many units engaged in combat?
Its only in Shilovo or in other areas too?
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Schuck
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« Reply #19 on: October 30, 2013, 09:07:10 PM »

I cant see it being a CPU, multi core issue,
I have a water cooled 3930k @ 4.0ghz, thats 6 cores, 12 threads, and it never gets past 16% of usage. (although the game doesnt use all cores anyway)
So it has to be graphics related.
If i position my camera at ground level between a green field and brown grass field and rotate the camera (this is with no smoke and 1 unit per side in QB)
The FPS goes from 50-60 in the green field down to 11 in the brown field, and back up to 50-60 as the camera rotates.
Is it a Card issue? Lack of Ram maybe, mine only has 2GB. Or manufacturer, i have an AMD 6970? (with latest drivers).
Is the game opptimised for NVIDIA?
Anybody using a Crossfire/SLI set up get any better?

Andrey, its worse in Shilovo and Volokonovka. Summer maps.
The number of units doesnt seem to matter (well not to me anyway)
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