What is the task distribution per core on Quad Core machines?
I ask because I run a quad-core 3.2ghz AMD, and according to Speedfan, while I play Rift, Core 2 (out of Core 0, 1, 2, and 3) gets an enormously heavy load compared to the other cores, reaching 100% in some cases while out questing.
I'm kind of performance minded - I like to stay close to 60 FPS when possible, and keep it above 30 during invasions. What is handled on Core 2, and will that jump very much during invasions?
Originally Posted by Forehead
Frame Rate/Hardware Technical FAQ
Pertinent part:
In the Rift.cfg try this out:What about multi-core CPUs, multi-threading, processor affinity, etc?
The short answer is that there's little the player can do to affect this, so don't worry too much about it. Rift divides up the required work into many threads, for separate tasks like networking, audio, animation, particle effects, and rendering. If you have a multi-core CPU, these threads will be distributed across the cores and run in parallel. In a perfect world, the work could be split into an infinite number of threads, each with an equal amount of work to do, keeping all the cores working equally. In reality, the work is not infinitely parallelizable, and one primary thread does more work than the others. The CPU core running that thread will show closer to 100% utilization, while the other cores will show less.
The primary thread is bound to a CPU for a few reasons. There are bugs with some BIOSes and CPU drivers which cause timing values to be incorrect if a thread moves between CPUs. Another issue is Windows’ tendency to move threads between CPUs to balance the overall load. If a thread is not bound to a CPU it will look like more CPUs are being utilized, and thus more things are running in parallel. This is not actually the case. The thread is still running in serial, it is just being constantly moved between CPUs. While this will make things look more parallel in task manager, it is actually somewhat slower due to the additional processing required at the OS level to do the context switching. For CPUs where each core has its own cache, this can also incur unnecessary cache misses.
We do recognize that which core this thread runs on can have a significant impact on certain systems. The core the main thread is bound to is exposed in the rift.cfg file, as MainThreadCPU. Valid values are 1…numCPUs, or 0 to specify the thread can run on any CPU.
MainThreadCPU = 0
See if load distribution changes.
The default appears to be 3.
What type of GPU do you have?
60FPS is indeed a lofty goal, but reasonable with the right GPU/CPU
Last edited by Kuldebar; 03-04-2011 at 02:59 PM.
I've not an i7 CPU, and from what I've seen (when having Windows Task Manager open, so it's not a great tool), my CPU's 3rd core runs about 60-70% usage when the game is running and the other cores hover around 5-10%. So either the various threads are getting distributed around pretty evenly, or the extra threads don't tax the CPU all that much. And now that you mention it, I haven't had Task Manager open during a rift event, so I don't know how that affects the CPU performance. I might have to look.
My graphics card is an ATI 4870. I can generally get in the upper 50-s most of the time, dropping into the mid 20's during large rift events. That said, I should qualify those numbers by saying that I'm running in a window at 1600x900 resolution, and "Medium" settings, with Multipass Terrain off, Shadows set to None, Full Screen Effects turned off, and I have Vertical Sync turned on. Those are the settings I've found give me the best game appearance and performance, while also significantly reducing the frequency of the crashes I have.
I have modified my rift.cfg as posted above a while ago, and I get an even 30-35% load on all 4 cores.
My computer
Proud member of the Forum Troll fan club.
I would very much appreciate is a Trion dev would comment on this thread.
Yes, accusing someone of trolling does, in fact, make you a troll.
Comment about what? The other posters covered the issue nicely.
Sorry, didn't see the link to the dev post before I posted.
Someone mentioned a way to make nVidia display fps/gpu information in an overlay:
Does anyone know how to turn this on? I looked in the nVidia control panel and didn't find it, so maybe it is a separate download?
Yes, accusing someone of trolling does, in fact, make you a troll.
I currently have a nVidia GTX 460 (768mb IIRC).
I changed the MainThread to 2, since that seemed to be the core that got the least amount of work (aside from 1, but that's kept clear by Trion for a reason). In Timberveil, looking out over the entirety of the camp from the port, FPS went from ~45 to ~55.
Demands on the processor seem to skyrocket the more bodies there are on the screen. This seems to explain why the demand would spike significantly inside Lantern Hook as opposed to outside; even though there was less there to actually process, there were more NPCs on screen at once.
Side note:
My current display settings are:
Terrain Distance: 4
Object Distance: 116 (was 75, but I found the pop-in annoyingly close).
Object Detail: 27
Anisotropic Filtering: 2
Shadow Map Res: 1
Texture Quality: 1
Ground Clutter Density: 3
Ground Clutter Radius: 100
Shader Complexity: 1
Lighting Quality: 3
Particle Quantity: 250
Spell Detail: 3
Checkboxes are all checked, save for multipass terrain, and I run full shadow+antialias edge smoothing. I tend to get 50-60 FPS in almost all areas, save Meridian. In groups I turn spell detail down to 1 and shadows to Off. I haven't yet had a chance to try invasions with this setup, though.
Yes, a lot of my settings are Low. However, most are things I can live without. When I'm in the middle of a fight, I do not notice the quality of shadows. I do, however, notice FPS drops of 10-15, which is what even low-detail shadows seem to cause when they come en masse.
Gonna go try setting the MainThread to 0.
I changed my Rift.cfg file to set the MainThreadCPU to 0 and let Rift put threads wherever it wanted to. The results aren't that exciting. You can see my previous post in this thread to see what the "before" CPU load was like. As for the after, more often than not (on my computer) The main thread CPU becomes the 8th core in my chip, however it now seems to max out between 50-60% usage. The other cores, if Rift decides to use them, will at times jump up to the 10-20% usage until they're done with their task and then drop back to being unused.
As for the effect on Rift's FPS rate, I haven't seen any change. I'm still getting in the upper 50's most of the time, and dropping into the mid to upper 20's when things get busy.
So, for my system at least, changing the MainThreadCPU setting from it's default value doesn't have any noticeable effect at all.
Here's my settings, I get around 30+ FPS roaming the world and down 12+ in congested Rift/Invasion areas. I run with AA and max shadows. Weirdly both of those don't actually give me that much FPS back.
Multipass Terrain and Full screen effect did eat some noticeable frames up...so I adjusted accordingly. I ordered a 6850 to replace my much beloved but overworked 5770...will be interesting to see what difference it will make.
[Client]
CPUBenchmarkTime = 1.385757
DefaultVideoPreset = 4
DriverVersionHigh = 524302
DriverVersionLow = 656158
EULA = 27
GPUBenchmarkTime = 1.930045
LogCombatConsole = False
LostFocusMinFrameTime = 100
MainThreadCPU = 0
UseQueryPerformanceCounter = True
[Video]
AmbientOcclusion = False
AnisotropicFiltering = 0
AntialiasMode = 2
AutoAdjustSettings = False
DetailObjectsEnabled = True
FullscreenFXEnabled = False
Gamma = 1.000000
GroundClutterDensity = 3
GroundClutterRadius = 85
LegacyRenderer = False
LightingComplexity = 0.600000
MaxLOD = 3
MaxShaderLOD = 10
MinShaderLOD = 6
MipFilter = 2
MultipassTerrainEnabled = False
ObjectDetail = 100
ObjectDrawDistance = 180
OverrideGamma = False
ProjectedTexturesEnabled = True
QualityPreset = 5
ResolutionX = 1920
ResolutionY = 1080
settingsInitialized = True
ShadowMapResolution = 2
ShadowMode = 2
TerrainDetail = 6
TerrainDrawDistance = 6
TextureQuality = 3
VFXLimit = 250
VSyncEnabled = False
WindowMode = 1
PS also did the core parking tweak.
Last edited by Kuldebar; 03-04-2011 at 09:26 PM.
What kind of CPU do you have? I have the GTX 406, and Phenom quad core 2.3 ghz, and with low settings I am getting around 20 fps, and that drops to around 6 during a rift or invasion.
Yes, accusing someone of trolling does, in fact, make you a troll.
First off here is the system I am running on:
CPU - 3.5Ghz Quad Phenom X4
GPU - Radeon HD 6970 2 Gig
Ram - 8 Gigs DDR3 1333
I run the game at ultra settings no AA. I run at around 52-57 FPS and around 35-40 FPS on huge rift invasions. (Odd fact: I once read the human eye cannot see any higher than 32 FPS before it all looks the same. Sounds crazy but makes sense I guess.) With that logic I feel my system runs pretty well for the game.
My cores run perfectly fine at about 10-30% load a piece during big invasions and the beautiful thing is I didn't have to touch a thing to get it to work out like this.
If FPS is your big issue alot of things play into this and one thing alot of people overlook is the heat in your rig. Unless your running a high end card its not a biggy but consider it if you are. There are 2 tiny little programs I use to watch my CPU's load: CPU-Z & Core Temp. Both of those are great for seeing how your system is running.
Last edited by Vyndeta; 03-05-2011 at 01:25 AM. Reason: I'm a horrible speller...
I have a 2.3ghz Quad Phenom x4
GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1GB
8GB DDR2 800MHz.
I just added the memory today and it didn't change the fps. I still get around 20, and then it drops to about 6 or 7 during a rift.
I am starting to think that a 1ghz difference in the cpu will give me 30 to 50 more fps that I am looking for. I just want to be able to play rifts without it getting choppy and hard to control. I would be happy with 20fps during a rift event. I hope I can find a new cpu that is compatible with my motherboard... otherwise this is going to be a very expensive upgrade, already about $300.00 in.
Yes, accusing someone of trolling does, in fact, make you a troll.
I just wanted to mention that I read about using msconfig in another thread to stop tasks and services from starting when you boot. When I ran msconfig, I had some tasks and services that I wasn't even aware of.. including a service that gets started because I bought Dragon Age. I turned that off, and I turned off a couple of adobe acrobat, I turned off about 7 iTunes and iPod services and tasks. When I played Raft after all of that, I gained about 10 fps. Knowing that the game is CPU intensive and that the CPU has a direct impact on the frame rate I am not surprised that I reached a better frame rate. I am surprised at what was running on my PC without my knowledge. Of course, the next time I run iTunes or read a .PDF those services and tasks will be back so I have to remember to check regularly.
In Windows 7, to run msconfig, click the start button and type msconfig into the search.
EDIT: for more information about msconfig, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSConfig
Last edited by Dratikus; 03-06-2011 at 02:11 PM.
Yes, accusing someone of trolling does, in fact, make you a troll.
Just as an additional piece of info, my 2500K @ 5.0GHz spreads the load very evenly across the cores with stock .cfg file. Windows 7 is better at thread scheduling than previous OSes so that is something to keep in mind as well.
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