Affinity mask/Multi Core extension

[galatei]

Hi,

 

I've created a library that can easily be attached to DCS application and will allow you to set/manipulate affinity mask automatically with every DCS load, without the need to set it manually every time. It saves me time and makes my game more fun, as I don't have to care about affinity mask anymore. Also, it's possible to change configuration between DCS sessions, even when BS' launcher is running, and new setup will be applied with next mission launch.

 

Please, have a look at it, it's freeware:

 

UPDATED to 0.2 (16 june 2009)!

 

1. here's a readme

http://www.cheekysheep.com/files/dcs/readme.txt

 

2. this is the whole package (library, configuration file, readme)

http://www.cheekysheep.com/files/dcs/MultiCoreExtension.zip ( MD5SUM: 7d12c18f3f2eaa495f04341084c8d628 )

http://www.cheekysheep.com/files/dcs/MultiCoreExtension.md5

 

I hope you'll find it useful.

 

Cheers

galatei (TF)

 

PS> It's doesn't modify game in any way, and it doesn't affect activation, nor gameplay, apart from increase in performance.

 

Source code is also available in case if you would ever need to modify it or re-build.

Please find it @

http://www.cheekysheep.com/files/dcs/MultiCoreExtension_src.zip ( MD5SUM: 8b3c690666cb427db63c57fb27d3d9a8 )

http://www.cheekysheep.com/files/dcs/MultiCoreExtension_src.md5

 

Edited June 16, 2009 by galatei
Updated version to 0.2 + new checksum.

[REL]

Great ...

I will try it

[kuunlan]

hey, this "fake" plug-in method is cool! thanks.

[Panzertard]

Cheers - smart move, using plugins, great method ;)

[galatei]

Great, thanks for giving it a chance.

 

Cheers and fly safe.

[Panzertard]

Unfortunately - I cannot see that it's using 2 cores. Taskmanager and righclicking DCS.exe while in MP on a server, indicates that only 1 core is in use.

I've set it to use 2 cores (8 possible).

 

# Use affinity mask section, which allows to set specific core configuration
UseAffinity=1
# Use this to ignore affinity section and always set the maximum mask for the system
SetMaxAffinity=0
# It may be a good idea to leave one core for operating system
[AFFINITY]
CPU0=1
CPU1=1
CPU2=0
CPU3=0

 

... part of graphics.cfg:

PlugIns
{
   Renderer = "DXRenderer.dll";
   Plugin1 = "MitkaGraphics.dll";
   Plugin2 = "ZweiBlau.dll";
   Plugin3 = "AVIMaker.dll";
   Plugin4 = "Weather.dll";
   GrEffects = "Effects.dll";
   Plugin5 = "RenderEffects.dll";
   Plugin6 = "MultiCoreExtension.dll";
}
DisplayMode

[galatei]

Unfortunately - I cannot see that it's using 2 cores. Taskmanager and righclicking DCS.exe while in MP on a server, indicates that only 1 core is in use.

I've set it to use 2 cores (8 possible).

Hi, sorry to hear it didn't work for you. Can I ask you for some details about your CPU, Operating system, and where are MuliCoreExtension.dll/ini files placed, please ? That would help me evaluate possible causes. Also, could you try to set SetMaxAffinity option to 1 (SetMaxAffinity=1), which would set maximum affinity for dcs exactly as reported by oper. system?

And one more thing, could you check if affinity mask is set properly at the beginning, but changed to default later, and if the whole thing happens in single player mode too?

Thanks in advance.

 

Edit: One more :D... Did you get rid of [PROCESS] and ProcessName=dcs.exe properties from ini file ?

 

Cheers

Edited June 15, 2009 by galatei

[Panzertard]

"One more :D... Did you get rid of [PROCESS] and ProcessName=dcs.exe properties from ini file ?"

Negative - just partial pasting lazy me - using your full original file, just modified it for "some cores".

 

Both MultiCoreExtension.* located in the \bin\stable dir.

 

As for the CPU,Core i7 940 @ default speed. Taskmanager reports 8 cores.

Oh btw - this is Win7 RC1 x74 - that part is ofc essential for you.

 

I have to test "SetMaxAffinity" and singleplayer tomorrow - getting late for tonight. Cheers :)

Edited June 15, 2009 by Panzertard

[SuDepp]

...does not work on my machine ... :(

 

Greets

S@uDepp

[Panzertard]

Update #1

Tested with single-player and with "SetMAxAffinity=1", Windows 7 RC1 x64. No effect - taskmanager, Affinity on DCS.exe (in 32 emulation mode) while in flight shows that only the first CPU is selected.

 

D:\Games)\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\Config\graphics.cfg

First part of the file only:

start_position = {-61, 1.2, -70};
start_position = {-180, 10.2, 630};
start_position = {-153.5, 0.1, 438};
start_position = {-60, 0.2, -60};
start_position = {0, 0.2, 0};
PlugIns
{
   Renderer = "DXRenderer.dll";
   Plugin1 = "MitkaGraphics.dll";
   Plugin2 = "ZweiBlau.dll";
   Plugin3 = "AVIMaker.dll";
   Plugin4 = "Weather.dll";
   GrEffects = "Effects.dll";
   Plugin5 = "RenderEffects.dll";
   Plugin6 = "MultiCoreExtension.dll";
}

 

D:\Games)\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\bin\stable\MultiCoreExtension.ini

The full file (alltough the linewrapping may be incorrect in this view):

# by galatei (TF)
[PROCESS]
# This is the name of the application, for which affinity mask will be set. 
# It's in case if it was loaded by another app, and we don't want to set affinity for anything 
# else than designated application. Leave empty to assign to anything.
ProcessName=dcs.exe
# Use affinity mask section, which allows to set specific core configuration
UseAffinity=1
# Use this to ignore affinity section and always set the maximum mask for the system
SetMaxAffinity=1
# It may be a good idea to leave one core for operating system
[AFFINITY]
CPU0=1
CPU1=1
CPU2=0
CPU3=0
CPU4=1
CPU5=1
CPU6=0
CPU7=0
# you can add more CPUs if you have them... e.g. CPU4-8 if there's another physical quad-core CPU.

 

Maybe you could add a debug to \temp\MultiCore.log in the Ka-50? Or another configurable store/log specified in your INI?

Edited June 15, 2009 by Panzertard

[galatei]

Hi, sorry for delay.

I've uploaded new version with configurable logging. Please re-download, run DCS and generate logs, then you can post them here or send them directly to me. Thanks in advance.

 

Cheers

 

PS> It seems that there's some problem on 64-bit systems, when game works in emulation mode, though I need to investigate it further. Workaround for that is coming.

I'm wondering if anyone running 32-bit Windows (XP/Vista/W7) have issue with that? I tested it on few 32-bit machines with Intel and AMD on Windows XP and Vista. I have Windows 7 RC on VMWare hosted by Linux, so I'll check it later too.

[SuDepp]

... ok.. so I stay tune for a 64bit version...

 

Greets

S@uDepp

[Panzertard]

Sorry for the late update, I just forgot to download and update the AMCE. ;)

I'll revise this post a bit later today with some more relevant info.

 

Update #2

That was quick - first round of startup caused a DCS-crash. As you can see it's relevant for the loading of the AMCE

# -------------- 20090620-105820 --------------
C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll
# E06D7363  at 762598F6 01:000088F6
#
# EAX = 0018EDF8
# EBX = FFFFFFFF
# ECX = 00000003
# EDX = 00000000
# ESI = 7C380EDC
# EDI = 0018EE88
# CS:EIP = 0023:762598F6
# SS:ESP = 002B:0018EDF8  EBP = 0018EE48
# DS = 002B  ES = 002B  FS = 0053  GS = 002B
# Flags = 00000212
762598F6 0018EE48 0001:000088F6 C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll RaiseException()+58
762598F6 0018EE48 0001:000088F6 C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll RaiseException()+58
7C359AED 0018EE88 0001:00018AED D:\Games)\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\bin\stable\MSVCR71.dll _CxxThrowException()+34
143B1B68 0018F6E0 0001:00000B68 D:\Games)\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\bin\stable\MultiCoreExtension.dll
143B53B1 0018F71C 0001:000043B1 D:\Games)\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\bin\stable\MultiCoreExtension.dll
77608364 0018F73C 0001:00028364 C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll RtlQueryEnvironmentVariable()+251
7761061F 0018F830 0001:0003061F C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll RtlEncodeSystemPointer()+4F2
7761076E 0018F99C 0001:0003076E C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll RtlEncodeSystemPointer()+641
7760E523 0018F9D0 0001:0002E523 C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll LdrLoadDll()+74
7625FE99 0018FA08 0001:0000EE99 C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll LoadLibraryExW()+178
7625FEE9 0018FA28 0001:0000EEE9 C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll LoadLibraryExA()+26
766454D7 0018FA48 0001:000054D7 C:\Windows\syswow64\kernel32.dll LoadLibraryA()+31
02D32BFA 0018FAB8 0001:00001BFA D:\Games)\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\bin\stable\Options.dll ?LoadPlugins@Graphics@Options@@SAXXZ()+DA

 

And hence no Log was written because it was never loaded.

MCE ini:

# by galatei (TF)
[PROCESS]
# This is the name of the application, for which affinity mask will be set. 
# It's in case if it was loaded by another app, and we don't want to set affinity for anything 
# else than designated application. Leave empty to assign to anything.
ProcessName=dcs.exe
# Use affinity mask section, which allows to set specific core configuration
UseAffinity=1
# Use this to ignore affinity section and always set the maximum mask for the system
SetMaxAffinity=0
# Logging
# Debug = 5, Info = 4, Warning = 3, Error = 2, Critical = 1, None = 0
[LOG]
LogLevel=5
# you can use environment vars to specify path
LogFile=[b]D:\Games)\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\Temp\MultiCoreExtension.log[/b]
# It may be a good idea to leave one core for operating system
[AFFINITY]
CPU0=1
CPU1=1
CPU2=1
CPU3=1
CPU4=0
CPU5=0
CPU6=0
CPU7=0
# you can add more CPUs if you have them... e.g. CPU4-8 if there's another physical quad-core CPU.

 

I'll be testing with the %TEMP% env variable back in place this time.

(PS: I nicked your format for the Sig-techinfo )

 

Update #3

Resetting the logfile to "%TEMP%\MultiCoreExtension.log" did not change anything.

And no log appeared in my C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp - as expected due to the nature of the crash.

 

Commenting out the whole Log section did not help.

Come to think of it - you're using # as a comment character, I would assume the ; is the standard "ini" format comment character in Windows - not sure if you want to conform to a ini standard at this point. I havent checked up on the INI standard though.

Edited June 20, 2009 by Panzertard

[Panzertard]

galatei - just curious - but how did you manage to figure out the requirements / model for plugins?

I'm looking for some of the same kind of documentation as well as other on some of the world model.

On the Wiki I've only found the "landscape modelling" thingy, which Im not working with atm.

Any hints there, bud? :)

[bumfire]

Is this something similar to DCSMax where it auto sets affinity to all cores when DCS.exe starts ?

[Panzertard]

Is this something similar to DCSMax where it auto sets affinity to all cores when DCS.exe starts ?

Yes, it's just using another method to enable it - "intergrated" as a (fake) pluging instead of a standalone Exe.

[galatei]

Hi,

 

Sorry for delay, I have quite busy period now.

I've managed to do many many tests on 64-bit machines (Windows XP 64bit + Vista 64bit) but couldn't reproduce those errors. Basically affinity was always set properly. So, I've developed a backup way of setting affinity, which I am testing now, and soon will post on these forums - it uses standard windows tool to set affinity on dcs for maximum compatibility.

Also, I've made a test version with newer compiler for 64-bit systems, that is available from the following location:

http://www.cheekysheep.com/files/dcs/test/MultiCoreExtension.zip (MD5SUM: 121fa32c3a6c0c0d1bda494faa617c4d)

http://www.cheekysheep.com/files/dcs/test/MultiCoreExtension.md5

Please test it if you can, and let me know if there's any problem.

Basically, all the code is now catching exceptions and in such case you'll get a message on the screen. If the game crashes and there's no message, it means that MCE is not the cause of this crash (you could post stack report generated by DCS (Ka-50\Temp\ directory on your dcs installation path). Thanks in advance.

[galatei]

Commenting out the whole Log section did not help.

Come to think of it - you're using # as a comment character, I would assume the ; is the standard "ini" format comment character in Windows - not sure if you want to conform to a ini standard at this point. I havent checked up on the INI standard though.

Although I'm using INI extension for configuration, I'm not using standard API for parsing config file. I wrote my own handler for that, which allows me for more flexibility. :)

 

 

galatei - just curious - but how did you manage to figure out the requirements / model for plugins?

I'm looking for some of the same kind of documentation as well as other on some of the world model.

On the Wiki I've only found the "landscape modelling" thingy, which Im not working with atm.

Any hints there, bud? :)

It's an exploit of plugin functionality in dcs. :D

Initially I was trying to figure out the plugin model, though I abandoned that very quickly as I noticed that dcs doesn't check whether plugin is legitimate or not. So, instead of writing something that would communicate with dcs, I exploited the fact that it has to call LoadLibrary in order to dynamically load any DLL first, and used that to set affinity.

Incoming version is also using similiar mechanism, though it runs a separate thread that will set affinity from the "outside", that will terminate itself after affinity has been set properly.

Cheers.

Edited June 24, 2009 by galatei

[Panzertard]

Cheers - working as intended this time in both SP and MP :)

Here's a sample from the log sent to %TEMP% (in the Users\<myuser>\AppData\Local\Temp)

Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension initialised.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Valid process detected=dcs.exe
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [WARN] : Process is running in Win32 emulation mode.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Current system affinity : 0x000000ff
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Current process affinity: 0x00000001
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [DEBG] : Calculating new affinity mask...
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [DEBG] : Calculation finished.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Setting new affinity mask for process = 0x0000000f
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : New affinity mask has been successfully set.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension done.
Fri Jun 26 01:16:34 2009 [iNFO] : Detaching from process.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension initialised.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Valid process detected=dcs.exe
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [WARN] : Process is running in Win32 emulation mode.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Current system affinity : 0x000000ff
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Current process affinity: 0x00000001
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [DEBG] : Calculating new affinity mask...
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [DEBG] : Calculation finished.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Setting new affinity mask for process = 0x0000000f
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : New affinity mask has been successfully set.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension done.

 

I used your INI unmodfied.

Will test a bit with custom logpaths / CPU's etc. :)

 

EDIT: Forgot to say well done! :)

Can be hard to track down those unknown factors and come up with some proper error-handling / management.

We all hate unhandled errors :p

Edited June 25, 2009 by Panzertard

[AussieFX]

Looks great, I will test it tomorrow with W7 x64.

 

I've had lots of trouble with dcsmax locking my system so something new will be greatly appreciated.

[AussieFX]

When I edit the graphics.cfg folder with notepad I get a denial saying I don't have permission to edit the folder.

How do I get around that please? OS is win7 x64

[galatei]

Cheers - working as intended this time in both SP and MP :)

Here's a sample from the log sent to %TEMP% (in the Users\<myuser>\AppData\Local\Temp)

Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension initialised.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Valid process detected=dcs.exe
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [WARN] : Process is running in Win32 emulation mode.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Current system affinity : 0x000000ff
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Current process affinity: 0x00000001
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [DEBG] : Calculating new affinity mask...
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [DEBG] : Calculation finished.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : Setting new affinity mask for process = 0x0000000f
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : New affinity mask has been successfully set.
Fri Jun 26 01:14:12 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension done.
Fri Jun 26 01:16:34 2009 [iNFO] : Detaching from process.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension initialised.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Valid process detected=dcs.exe
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [WARN] : Process is running in Win32 emulation mode.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Current system affinity : 0x000000ff
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Current process affinity: 0x00000001
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [DEBG] : Calculating new affinity mask...
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [DEBG] : Calculation finished.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : Setting new affinity mask for process = 0x0000000f
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : New affinity mask has been successfully set.
Fri Jun 26 01:17:20 2009 [iNFO] : MultiCoreExtension done.

I used your INI unmodfied.

Will test a bit with custom logpaths / CPU's etc. :)

 

EDIT: Forgot to say well done! :)

Can be hard to track down those unknown factors and come up with some proper error-handling / management.

We all hate unhandled errors :p

 

Thanks for testing, I'm glad to hear it's working fine with 64-bit Windows.

As you're saying, most of the development time can be spent on proper error handling and reporting, sometimes it's a nightmare. But I believe, that in this case it was the compiler that was responsible for the whole issue. hmmm, needs more investigating.

I tested the library with my test app on Windows 7 x64 on VMWare with all positive results, so it should be working fine.

 

I still suggest to use version from the original thread on 32bit operating systems and the new one for 64 bit only, until I find definitive answer to that compiler issue.

 

Again, thanks for tests, I'm hoping to have new release ready in few days, which would allow for more options (e.g. custom application launching).

 

When I edit the graphics.cfg folder with notepad I get a denial saying I don't have permission to edit the folder.

How do I get around that please? OS is win7 x64

I suppose DCS was installed in "Program Files" folder which is supposed to be read only folder. In order to get around access problem, run Notepad using right mouse click, and option "Run as Administrator" (or something similiar), and then File->Open-> (browse to DCS folders and select graphics.cfg). You may need to change to "All files" first as Notepad filters "Text Documents (*.txt)" by default.

 

Cheers

[bumfire]

When I edit the graphics.cfg folder with notepad I get a denial saying I don't have permission to edit the folder.

How do I get around that please? OS is win7 x64

 

 

Ok, first, dont use notepad to edit any files within dcs, only use something like notepad++, its free and wont cause problems that notepad will cause if you edit a dcs file.

 

Secondly, in vista and presumably win7, it doesnt allow you to edit program files without a carry on, best scenario is to copy the file you want to desktop, edit it there without any problems and then paste the modified version back into where you copied it from in the first place, probably programfiles x86 etc and overwrite the original in the process.

 

Clean and simple.

[AussieFX]

Cheers guys.

I had a major windows crash last night requiring a full re install so it may be a few days before I can try this again.

I forgot about the run as administrator thing, duh!!! :doh:

[SuDepp]

Ok .... my report :)

 

It works NOW flawlessly - all four cores are at duty,

 

BUT it seems to be the same thing as with the other affinity tools.

 

Although the affinity is set correct, the point of time while its set is not the right one. It starts right at the beginning of the gamescene. In my case the result is that the first core is at nearly 100% most of the time. The second works at 50% - core three + four stays at 10-25%.

Ingame when switching the view from e.g. in- to outside it stutters short (swapping?).

When the affinity is set by using DCSmax (35sec.) it is different. The work divided to all four cores nearly similar (60-80%) - and ingame no stuttering at all ......

 

So it would be great if there could be some kind of delay before the affinity is set, too.

 

Nevertheless peeps without having affinity set different than with vanilla DCS will profit in any way.

 

Just my 2c ;)

 

Greets

S@uDepp