🚀 go-pugleaf

RetroBBS NetNews Server

Inspired by RockSolid Light RIP Retro Guy

Thread View: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
1 messages
1 total messages Started by John Doe Tue, 07 Jun 2011 20:57
Better game performance on a quad core CPU
#716375
Author: John Doe
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2011 20:57
34 lines
2831 bytes
This method won't work for everybody, but it is news to some. 

Even if more cores does nothing about the speed of a program that 
cannot use multiple cores, you might be able to make that program 
run faster by limiting the core use of other processes. 

On my quad core system, while playing Supreme Commander 2, not all 
cores are maxed out, but the game overloads one of them. Limiting 
lots of other processes to cores 2 & 3 frees up cores 0 & 1 and 
helps the game run smoothly. By default, according to Task 
Manager, the game uses all four cores, so the only manipulation is
to prevent it from using one of the two dedicated cores. If one of
those two dedicated cores is maxed out while playing, that core is
turned off for the game. Then the game starts using the other 
dedicated core, and it uses that core at less than 70%. 

To accomplish that, the multitude of less important processes need
to be changed in Task Manager, but only once. Between restarting 
Windows, the Affinity setting is remembered for all but one 
process that I know of (Real Temp resets itself to use all four 
cores). The only other requirement is toggling Supreme Commander 2 
to not use core 0 or core 1. That is done here no more than once 
per gaming session that usually lasts for hours. 

In other words... The idea is just to free up cores by limiting 
the use of other processes, instead of the familiar idea of trying 
to make your CPU intensive process/game use all of the cores. 

That science is not precise, yet. Maybe the game does not in fact 
use all four cores efficiently, but the method compensates. There 
is some stuff to learn, like whether there are any common Windows 
processes that should not be limited to specific cores. I doubt 
it, but have not yet done the research since the method works well
so far. 
Thread Navigation

This is a paginated view of messages in the thread with full content displayed inline.

Messages are displayed in chronological order, with the original post highlighted in green.

Use pagination controls to navigate through all messages in large threads.

Back to All Threads