CPU Affinity Defaults to CPU 0 only...

[MackTheKnight]

All,

 

So I was having some seriously frustrating issues in the latest 2.5 beta with F-18 and the Persian Gulf map. I'd load a simple MP mission up and the ground textures wouldn't load. Cockpit textures would be all solid black.

 

Sometimes textures would load but if I went to the F10 map, and then back to the cockpit, the ground textures would disappear...

 

Long story short - after alot of messing about with settings (None of which made a difference), I discovered that DCS.exe was defaulting to use only one core of my 6 core/12 thread CPU.

 

Manually going into taskman and setting it to all cores, fixes all my issues. I can now run DCS with high settings and zero stutter or strange texture behaviour.

 

But... I have to do this every single time I launch DCS. I can't figure out why it continues to default to CPU0, but at least this work-around is easy.

 

Anybody else notice or experience similar behaviour?

 

Cheers,

Mack

[MackTheKnight]

So I found the cause of this behaviour.

 

I'm running an older Broadwell-E CPU, (i7-6850K), with an MSI Tomahawk X99 motherboard.

 

One of the drivers it installs by default is called "intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0". The utility included with it that's enabled by default, supposedly optimizes CPU affinity based on application demand.

 

Turning that thing off has solved the problem. DCS now defaults to use all 6 cores/12 threads.

 

Anybody running X99 should check/verify this thing is turned off as it's not running as designed or is bugged with DCS. (Yes I have the latest motherboard drivers, etc. And this is the latest driver/util that Intel has available for the X99 chipset).

 

Details on how to get rid of the utility entirely can be found here: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/support-software/How-To-Prevent-The-Intel-Turbo-Boost-Max-3-0-Software-From-Launching-On-Startup-1078/

Make sure you read the comments section as there are some additional details there you need to follow, that weren't covered in the initial article.

 

Hope this helps someone else out there!

 

-Mack

Edited June 5, 2018 by MackTheKnight

[DflippinK]

So I found the cause of this behaviour.

 

I'm running an older Sandybridge-E CPU, (i7-6850K), with an MSI Tomahawk X99 motherboard.

 

One of the drivers it installs by default is called "intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0". The utility included with it that's enabled by default, supposedly optimizes CPU affinity based on application demand.

 

Turning that thing off has solved the problem. DCS now defaults to use all 6 cores/12 threads.

 

Anybody running X99 should check/verify this thing is turned off as it's not running as designed or is bugged with DCS. (Yes I have the latest motherboard drivers, etc. And this is the latest driver/util that Intel has available for the X99 chipset).

 

Details on how to get rid of the utility entirely can be found here: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/support-software/How-To-Prevent-The-Intel-Turbo-Boost-Max-3-0-Software-From-Launching-On-Startup-1078/

Make sure you read the comments section as there are some additional details there you need to follow, that weren't covered in the initial article.

 

Hope this helps someone else out there!

 

-Mack

 

 

good work!!:)

[MackTheKnight]

Thanks - corrected a mistake in my write-up. It's actually broadwell-e, not sandy. I can never keep-up with the code-names. :music_whistling:

[wrl11]

Mine does the same. Process lasso app fixed it.

[Fakum]

That was a heck of a find! Congrats

[cabzi]

I had the same problem. Rather than uninstalling ITBMT, I also use Process Lasso to fix it. I get best results setting DCS.exe as single-thread process/highest performance mode, so it uses only physical cores (0,2,4,6,8 and 10).

[lefty1117]

Mack - do you have in-game MSAA enabled? If not can you try it? I had to turn it off completely to get reasonable performance and remove the microstutters. I'm running an i7-5820k, 16GB RAM, nvidia 1070

[MackTheKnight]

Hi Lefty,

 

Yes, I have MSAA set to 4X. In the Gulf map, I'm now getting FPS in the 60s at the air-field and 100+ up in the air.

 

Prior to figuring out the cpu affinity issue I was getting low 20's no matter what settings I tried along with constant micro-stutters every few seconds.

 

So happy to have it fixed now!

 

For reference I've a 1080Ti GPU OC'd to 2050/6005. (Under a custom water loop - don't try that on air)

 

-Mack

Edited June 5, 2018 by MackTheKnight

[DflippinK]

Hey Mack, any chance you could post up a screen cap of Task Manager CPU performance tab while in flight?... im curious how the utilization is being spread among the cores on your system.. On mine, it is using 2,.. but the primary core is more saturated as of the 2.5.2.18144 update..

[MackTheKnight]

here's a screen-cap, while sitting on the carrier deck...

[lefty1117]

From that screengrab it looks to me like core 11 is actually doing most of the work. The spikes don't matter so much unless they're sustained. Core 11 is the only one that really shows sustained utilization. I was messing with resource viewer and I couldn't figure out how to get it to show CPU utilization for the DCS process only across all the cores - that would be the definitive view I think to prove if this is really working as you think.

[BrainFart0]

+1

 

Same here with the 8700k, looks like the last core is doing most of the work...

[David OC]

It's weird how some only have this problem with cpu utilization in DCS, I helped a guy recently who had the problem of DCS only grabbing one core, this was on one of the new CPU's too. He now also uses process lasso to make DCS use all his cores.

 

 

Here is a screenshot of me forcing DCS in process lasso to use only the main 4 Cores of my CPU. It shows 25%, in reality it's 50% of 4 main cores utilization, one main core working up to 90 %. This is at max in game settings, I haven't tested this on PG. The big thing here tho is My CPU is able to MAX out the 1080ti shown in the graph below, that's what I was testing. ED is working on getting this more balanced between the CPU and GPU.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2018 by David OC

[Stacker]

I think DCS still only really uses 2 threads for it's processing - one for the game, the other for audio. Additional threading is probably down to directx and/or your graphics driver parting up the work so that may benefit from spreading out but I'm not sure how much of an impact that has. The remaining threads appear to be DRM related. All of these can be spread out over your cores but the single primary game thread is still present and can't be divided up into multiple cores (unless 2.5.x has improved things!).

[MackTheKnight]

Sounds like I should give this process lasso thing a try just out of curiosity. I honestly don't care what the cpu/gpu usage stats show as long as I'm getting good FPS with no hitching.

 

And my FPS is solid now since getting rid of that Intel utility that was screwing my system over.

 

I ran a mission last night and the FPS never dropped below 60 and was generally hovering around 100. That is a far cry from the annoying hitching and low 20 some FPS I was getting before, so I'm a very happy simmer now!

 

I haven't tried the F18 in the Oculus yet, as I wanted to get more familiar with all the systems before jumping into VR. But I'm hopeful that my VR performance has improved dramatically as well, thanks to figuring this out!

[boedha68]

I think DCS still only really uses 2 threads for it's processing - one for the game, the other for audio. Additional threading is probably down to directx and/or your graphics driver parting up the work so that may benefit from spreading out but I'm not sure how much of an impact that has. The remaining threads appear to be DRM related. All of these can be spread out over your cores but the single primary game thread is still present and can't be divided up into multiple cores (unless 2.5.x has improved things!).

 

 

 

Confirmed:

 

 

DCS is using 2 cores. period. :D

[BitMaster]

Confirmed:

 

 

DCS is using 2 cores. period. :D

 

The devs don't say so anymore, they outline that threading has been adopted wherever they can

and more in the future.

 

When I fly online, my CPU is often beyond 60%, not permanent, but often and long enough to make me believe that more cores have a justification already.

 

The more time goes by the more DCS will adopt threading where they can and once Vulkan arrives

their is even more need for multiple cores.

 

Yeah, the main work is done by 1 core, but that's not the whole picture.

[Tzigy]

Finally!!! changing the affinity to "all" completely eliminated all my horrible stutters!! Will experiment with lasso

 

i9-7900X 3.3-4.3Ghz 16GB Win10 Pro 64 GTX 1080Ti Acer XB321HK TM Warthog MFG TIR5 GT Omega Pro/ButtKickerx1/WheelStandPro Playseat/ButtKickerx2

Edited August 30, 2018 by bighead

[coach]

Finally!!! changing the affinity to "all" completely eliminated all my horrible stutters!! Will experiment with lasso

 

You mean as opposed to one thread per core (half threads) as it used to be? Interesting.

[wju]

Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 causes one core affinity

 

I can confirm, that Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 causes DCS.exe affinity to one core only.

Disabling Intel Turbo solves the problem.

This strange behavior occured after last WIN10 1809 upgrade

 

MB: MSI with X299 chipset; CPU: i7-7820x

[enigma6584]

I can confirm, that Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 causes DCS.exe affinity to one core only.

Disabling Intel Turbo solves the problem.

This strange behavior occured after last WIN10 1809 upgrade

 

MB: MSI with X299 chipset; CPU: i7-7820x

 

Interesting thread gents. I will have to give this a try and see if it works for me as well.

[enigma6584]

Well I tried it and wow! It did work and solved all my issues I had with DCS. Who would have thought. Everything is now smooth as silk, lowest FPS I'm getting is 60 which includes flying down in the weeds in the big cities. I'm running everything on high, visibility on Ultra at resolution of 2560X1440.

 

Thank you for this thread and this find. I can now enjoy DCS on this new rig.

[3DArtistExtreme]

All,

 

So I was having some seriously frustrating issues in the latest 2.5 beta with F-18 and the Persian Gulf map. I'd load a simple MP mission up and the ground textures wouldn't load. Cockpit textures would be all solid black.

 

Sometimes textures would load but if I went to the F10 map, and then back to the cockpit, the ground textures would disappear...

 

Long story short - after alot of messing about with settings (None of which made a difference), I discovered that DCS.exe was defaulting to use only one core of my 6 core/12 thread CPU.

 

Manually going into taskman and setting it to all cores, fixes all my issues. I can now run DCS with high settings and zero stutter or strange texture behaviour.

 

But... I have to do this every single time I launch DCS. I can't figure out why it continues to default to CPU0, but at least this work-around is easy.

 

Anybody else notice or experience similar behaviour?

 

Cheers,

Mack

 

I have to confirm it, this thing took me quite some time to discover.

However, I can finally run DCS in VR with acceptable fps.

[Chic]

Some of my buds had same prob. As Wrl11 mentioned above, Process Lasso works well to manage CPU and stop recurrent defaulting to CPU0