CPU compatible with avx instructions

[clanitho]

ED / Razbam, you must indicate on the purchase page that it is mandatory to have a cpu compatible with the avx instructions.

[Despayre]

I think it would be a good idea for sure, however, "mandatory" would suggest it's not already posted somewhere important, but I'm unaware of any hardware that meets the minimum spec, as laid out by DCS, that doesn't have AVX abilities.

Do you have a CPU that meets or exceeds these specs, but doesn't have AVX support? 

[clanitho]

Personally I don't have any problems but a member of the CheckSix forum uses an i7 860 which doesn't support avx instructions. It's true that this processor is old, but so far he hasn't had any problems with the other DCS modules.

[Gripen-Whippin]

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

I think it would be a good idea for sure, however, "mandatory" would suggest it's not already posted somewhere important, but I'm unaware of any hardware that meets the minimum spec, as laid out by DCS, that doesn't have AVX abilities.

Do you have a CPU that meets or exceeds these specs, but doesn't have AVX support? 

Yes, my friend just posted in another thread detailing the exact same problem, he owns a 2010,  Intel® Xeon® Processor X5650  , 6 core, 12 thread.        I would HARDLY call that a "bad" CPU ,  on paper it has more Cores / Threads than my i7- 7700k  from 2018.    I understand it's a 13-year-old cpu,  but he can run EVERY other module just fine, and whilst I'm on board with modernizing the DCS platform, I agree with the OP that they should DEFINITELY, absolutely, unequivocally be advertised with a warning, and instructions to verify your CPU meets spec. I think a refund would be appropriate on a limited-case basis for these individuals. They literally have a digital paperweight. 

[Despayre]

48 minutes ago, Gripen-Whippin said:

a 2010,  Intel® Xeon® Processor X5650  , 6 core, 12 thread.        I would HARDLY call that a "bad" CPU

Neither would I, but since CPU power doubles every 18 months (Thank you Gordon Moore) and that CPU is 13 years old, or 8.6 CPU-doubling generations ago if you prefer, That's a heavy ask of a CPU from that generation, and while the Xeon is almost certainly faster at many things than an i-3 or even some i-5's of that era, that's not what the spec requires you to have. A fast Xeon is not a compatible faster version of an i-3.

Terrible analogy time... you have a mini and a dumptruck. The spec calls for a mini, but you argue your dumptruck should be fine, since it does everything the mini can do... until you come to the part where there's a tunnel that's only 5ft high.. and now you know why the spec is the mini... in this analogy, AVX=tunnel with 5ft ceiling.

But again, I agree with you, there *should* be a note, and I think until that note gets put up, it should be refunded if requested. I remain at, it's a very good idea, but I don't see it as mandatory, I also don't think that as a percentage, there's very many DCS players running with 13 year old gear that are going to have this problem, but I don't know that to be true (but I'm still pretty sure  ).

[clanitho]

ED must refund users who encounter this problem.

[dorianR666]

10 hours ago, Despayre said:

since CPU power doubles every 18 months (Thank you Gordon Moore)

transistor count.

computational power of cpus definitely doesnt double every 18 months. it grows woefully little actually.

 

 

hardware requirements need to be more detailed than just "i3 at 2.8 ghz", thats extremely vague. also its a common practice for games or multimedia software to use optional instruction set extensions only when available on that particular pc, defaulting to standard amd64 instructions when not available.

i agree the potential customer should be informed of this. even modern cpus sometimes dont support avx: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24578591

Edited June 26, 2023 by dorianR666

[Marco Schaap]

If you look at the specs of the first ever i3 with a clock speed above 2.8Ghz, you'll stumble upon i3-530, which has no AVX instructionsset on-board. From what I found, AVX on those desktop processors was introduced with the release of the i3-2120. With the current hardware from the last 5 years or so AVX should never be an issue, but the minimum specs should at least state the minimum requirements more clear than now.

[Despayre]

4 hours ago, dorianR666 said:

transistor count.

computational power of cpus definitely doesnt double every 18 months. it grows woefully little actually.

 

 

hardware requirements need to be more detailed than just "i3 at 2.8 ghz", thats extremely vague. also its a common practice for games or multimedia software to use optional instruction set extensions only when available on that particular pc, defaulting to standard amd64 instructions when not available.

i agree the potential customer should be informed of this. even modern cpus sometimes dont support avx: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24578591

 

Yes, transistor count, I was keeping it simple because the details are irrelevant here, but, you are correct, it's transistor count, not CPU computational power.

However, the second half of your statement that computational power grows woefully little, well... that's just wrong. Either way, the distinction is completely unrelated to the discussion at hand. For whatever reason a 13 year old CPU that was NEVER the spec for this is not surprising to have problems, and I suspect it impacts extremely few people... and finally, as I've said every time, I still think it would be a good idea to add that note about AVX.

And linking a forum post from a 3 year old article talking about even older Celerons and Pentiums (also which pretty much no one uses, esp here) doesn't do much to sway anything, ok, so there's 2% edge cases, instead of 1%.. still minor minor, and still should be mentioned, and still should be refunded until they do mention it, when requested.

[Ramsay]

21 hours ago, Despayre said:

Do you have a CPU that meets or exceeds these specs, but doesn't have AVX support? 

Yes, my secondary PC has a 1st gen i7-860 @2.8MHz - paired with a RTX 2070 Super it runs Multi-threaded DCS at 80-90 fps.

Noting that a CPU supporting AVX is required to run the DCS F-15E in the specs. would seem sensible (unless the requirement is a compiler error).

Edited June 26, 2023 by Ramsay

[dorianR666]

2 hours ago, Despayre said:

However, the second half of your statement that computational power grows woefully little, well... that's just wrong.

my cpu is amd 1600x, released in 2017. amd's currently most powerful pc cpu is 7950X3D, released this year.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-9-7950X3D-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-1600X/m2052977vs3920

unless your software paralellizes the load equally over more than 12 threads (rare and never seen in games), then performance only doubled... in 6 years. (btw less than doubled in single core). for 6 years, thats woefully little in my book.

 

2 hours ago, Despayre said:

And linking a forum post from a 3 year old article talking about even older Celerons and Pentiums (also which pretty much no one uses

those cpus came out in q2 2020.

 

2 hours ago, Despayre said:

I still think it would be a good idea to add that note about AVX.

the second paragrah wasnt directed as you, which is why i separated it with newlines. i didnt make that clear, my bad.

Edited June 26, 2023 by dorianR666

[Despayre]

22 hours ago, dorianR666 said:

my cpu is amd 1600x, released in 2017. amd's currently most powerful pc cpu is 7950X3D, released this year.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-9-7950X3D-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-1600X/m2052977vs3920

unless your software paralellizes the load equally over more than 12 threads (rare and never seen in games), then performance only doubled... in 6 years. (btw less than doubled in single core). for 6 years, thats woefully little in my book.

 

"unless" is a qualifier that is just disingenuous. It has extra capability. If you wanna state "if you take out the extra capabilities, there are no extra capabilities." then I agree with you, otherwise, that's a bit of a tilt in your measuring system... Older CPU's can't do it, newer ones can.

I also see that you're comparing AMD cpu's, which is legit, however, I was referring specifically to Intel CPU's, and I'm sure there's an edge case or two that you could find there too, but it's definitely not the norm. I'm not a fan of AMD so I can't claim anything about those chips.

"less than doubled in single core" - true, but again, you neglect to mention that because of increased transistor count (Hi Gord!) again, there's far more cores on the same chip... you can't just dismiss that. They're more powerful... analogy... "Ya, sure, that V8 is more powerful than my V4, but if you take away 4 cylinders, it's not much more at all, I'd call it woefully little." I just can't personally get there as that being a valid argument.

Thanks for explaining your methodology anyway though, but we've definitely wandered off-topic, and well into Nerdville, which is ok, cuz that's where I live at work, but probably best not to continue cluttering this thread.

[Rudel_chw]

On 6/25/2023 at 1:57 PM, clanitho said:

ED / Razbam, you must indicate on the purchase page that it is mandatory to have a cpu compatible with the avx instructions.

Razbam is adding support for older processors: