Why doesnt DCS: A-10C Warthog use the Dual or Quad Cores ?

[nastynacho]

Why doesnt DCS: A-10C Warthog use the Dual or Quad Cores ?

 

maybe thats why FPS is low for some people :joystick:

[GGTharos]

Because it would require a major rewrite of the engine.

It will happen some time in the future, but not all at once.

[Revelation]

The GHz clock rate of your CPU is more important in most sims....

[Steel Jaw]

Because it would require a major rewrite of the engine.

 

Well then get on it !

 

// runs away. :D

[GGTharos]

Its coming for you Mower!!! :P

 

 

 

Well then get on it !

 

// runs away. :D

[GGTharos]

Actually, I should also point out that DCS is progressing towards multi-core usage.

 

Already the sound engine runs on a separate core for example. The network code is also multi-threaded.

[Steel Jaw]

So then, on a related note, what benefit should I see between 32 bit and 64? So far I cannot see a difference...granted it's beta.

[GGTharos]

64bit allows larger memory address space to be used, which means easier handling of larger textures, larger terrain, etc etc.

 

Basically any operation that is memory related will become more efficient. You may or may not see improvement right away, but it is a step in the right direction. In theory you should not see an FPS drop with larger textures when going to 64bit as an example, up to some limit.

[Steel Jaw]

In theory you should not see an FPS drop with larger textures when going to 64bit as an example, up to some limit.

 

Been having troubles with high textures in 32 so I'll try them in 64, all else being equal. The trees in medium texture are Gawd aweful ulgy.

[Druid_]

Aren't all the common textures loaded into the VGA cards memory ?

[GGTharos]

You still have to load them and to handle them using a 32bit app in the end.

[Druid_]

Sorry, I meant aren't the common textures all loaded into VGA memory at game start. Therefore, no diff between 32 & 64 bit.

[GGTharos]

Maybe that's right. In essence, 64-bit lets you keep up with them times and removes the 2Gb application limit.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/64-bit-vista-gaming,2250-13.html

[Panzertard]

What? Someone enlighten me what this thread is about? "dual vs quad core".

I've noticed DCS taking advantage of 4 cores on my system.

64 bit system, x86 game running. HT = off.

[arality]

Regarding textures and video memory, you aren't really going to notice a difference, unless you have a 4Gb 5970 or Nvidias equivalent, but at that point your probably running the game so fast you won't notice anyways (and assuming the textures are large enough to fill up more than 2Gb, which I doubt).

 

Now the 64-bit application for system memory allows more memory for things like triggers in missions, physics, etc...

[Frederf]

What? Someone enlighten me what this thread is about? "dual vs quad core".

I've noticed DCS taking advantage of 4 cores on my system.

64 bit system, x86 game running. HT = off.

 

I think Win7 will spread a single thread of computation across multiple cores but it's not as good as having multiple-threads not spanning a core. I think.

[Bucic]

Because it would require a major rewrite of the engine.

It will happen some time in the future, but not all at once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP1kKcZtnkQ#t=8m58s :D

[nastynacho]

Aren't all the common textures loaded into the VGA cards memory ?

 

Do you mean PCIExpressx16 cards?

[ALDEGA]

I think Win7 will spread a single thread of computation across multiple cores

Spread a single thread accross multiple logical CPU's and execute it simultaneously? .............

[diveplane]

Why doesnt DCS: A-10C Warthog use the Dual or Quad Cores ?

 

maybe thats why FPS is low for some people :joystick:

 

simulator does indeed use multicore cpu usage to a degree , one thread runs audios and the other runs the simulator.

[Echonomix]

Would it be possible to stop windows 7 from splitting the execution to different cores? I think the i5 and i7 will actually run better by shutting down the extra cores and ramp up the clock speed on the single core, but only if it does not need to scale across cores, correct?

[Callsign.Vega]

simulator does indeed use multicore cpu usage to a degree , one thread runs audios and the other runs the simulator.

 

That is the problem though, it uses multi-core to a very small degree. The main simulation thread is still limited to one CPU in which this sim hit's the ceiling on even the fastest processors extremely quickly.

[nastynacho]

Would it be possible to stop windows 7 from splitting the execution to different cores? I think the i5 and i7 will actually run better by shutting down the extra cores and ramp up the clock speed on the single core, but only if it does not need to scale across cores, correct?

 

CTRL+ALT+DELETE > Set Affinity > CPU 0 :book:

 

Oddly in some programs this actually speeds it up

[Moa]

Note, while 64-bit gives a larger address space and allows larger textures, data sets, larger atomic integer operations etc there are some caveats:

 

* data is often 'word-aligned' on a 64-bit boundary rather than a 32-bit boundary. This can make the same program use twice as much memory for the same data. Fortunately not all data is treated this way, eg. pixel/textel data. This means unless you have 4 GB RAM or more you don't want a 64-bit O/S (really, the benefit of 64-bit is mostly marginal unless you have 8 GB or more of RAM).

 

* if 64-bit data types are used in lieu of 32-bit types there can be a slowdown as twice as many bits have to be sent across the bus (which is *physically* only 48-bits on the most modern consumer boards). This means extra clock cycles may be needed to transfer the data.

 

Fortunately most 64-bit C/C++ programs only differ in-memory by the size of the pointer and long types (both increasing from 32-bit to 64-bit). The other data types are unchanged (int is still 32-bits etc with current compilers).

 

With regard to multi-threading. Someone asked if "a thread could be spread amongst cores". This should be avoided where possible (moving the thread around the cores - a single thread can't run simultaneously on more than one core). To use multiple cores you either need multiple processes or multiple threads (not a single thread).

 

DCS & FC2 use two threads: one for sound and one for everything else. A dual-core chip works well. A quad-core chip has limited benefit, although the cores unused for the game can be used to run Windows etc, provided that threads are not swapped among cores so much that the context-switching defeats the benefit of the off-loaded cores (which is what the CPU affinity setting helps with).

[Echonomix]

CTRL+ALT+DELETE > Set Affinity > CPU 0 :book:

 

Oddly in some programs this actually speeds it up

 

 

Ah yes, affinity. I couldn't think of what it was called, thanks. Has anyone got around to trying this with the beta yet?