Most CPU Intensive Game

[peonyu]

Originally Posted by Joshatdot

back in the day .. WoW 40 man Raids

Morrowind would take WoW back then and make it its bitch as far as cpu bottlenecks go. WoW 40 raids ran decently on most computers but Morrowind needed a 2ghz Athlon 64 cpu to break 60 fps in Balmorra.

[NickelPlate]

Originally Posted by Smoove910

pacman!

Indeed! The path finding for all four ghosts is murderous to any modern CPU.

[Borealis7]

Folding@Home - some people simply like to watch it work

/threadforsurethistime

[Idontcare]

Originally Posted by Acanthus

I still find it strange that no single core gets pegged at 100%

That is intentional and it is because of the thread scheduler in windows, it is intentionally migrating the 2 active threads, cycling them across the cores.

Supposedly this is done on purpose at the request of the CPU makers to reduce the average operating temperature of any given core such that the system uses less power (less static losses) and creates less fan noise.

I cannot confirm if this really is a request from the CPU guys, but I can confirm it really does result in lower temperatures and lower power consumption, but it also slightly lowers performance because the cache has to migrate every time the thread migrates. I can also confirm that the scheduler is at least intelligent enough that it knows to avoid double-loading a physical core or module with two threads, if it can it will avoid loading two threads on the same module and will avoid loading two threads onto an HT core.

The extra 5% or so of CPU activity is likely associated with the scheduler itself, shuffling data across cores and tracking it all with performance counters and the like.

Some programs will manage their own affinity locking which gets around the scheduler shenanigans, but most programs don't do that.

[Acanthus]

Originally Posted by Idontcare

That is intentional and it is because of the thread scheduler in windows, it is intentionally migrating the 2 active threads, cycling them across the cores.

Supposedly this is done on purpose at the request of the CPU makers to reduce the average operating temperature of any given core such that the system uses less power (less static losses) and creates less fan noise.

I cannot confirm if this really is a request from the CPU guys, but I can confirm it really does result in lower temperatures and lower power consumption, but it also slightly lowers performance because the cache has to migrate every time the thread migrates. I can also confirm that the scheduler is at least intelligent enough that it knows to avoid double-loading a physical core or module with two threads, if it can it will avoid loading two threads on the same module and will avoid loading two threads onto an HT core.

The extra 5% or so of CPU activity is likely associated with the scheduler itself, shuffling data across cores and tracking it all with performance counters and the like.

Some programs will manage their own affinity locking which gets around the scheduler shenanigans, but most programs don't do that.

I wonder if forcing 2 cores would change performance in game noticeably.

[Idontcare]

Originally Posted by Acanthus

I wonder if forcing 2 cores would change performance in game noticeably.

Noticably? Not likely, not unless the game itself was already sitting on the hairy edge of a particular fps threshold where it made the difference with vsync or some such.

And when it comes to systems that have turbo-core/turbo-boost enabled and functioning it may actually hurt performance because locking the threads to a given core will increase its temperature and power-consumption which can result in the CPU dropping down in speed bin if it was running in a turbo bin.

[Acanthus]

Originally Posted by Idontcare

Noticably? Not likely, not unless the game itself was already sitting on the hairy edge of a particular fps threshold where it made the difference with vsync or some such.

And when it comes to systems that have turbo-core/turbo-boost enabled and functioning it may actually hurt performance because locking the threads to a given core will increase its temperature and power-consumption which can result in the CPU dropping down in speed bin if it was running in a turbo bin.

I have all throttling and turbo features disabled. I just ran a run with it forced to CPU-0 and CPU-1 on the rig in sig and didn't notice a difference positive or negative, but I couldn't find a large battle to compare. Most people fall to 20-28fps regardless of settings and graphics card in large planetside battles. (less if the computer is really dated)

[cytg111]

talking BF3 and 64 player maps, couldnt it be something like the network latency involved in synchronizing 64 players more that it is cpu or gpu cycles that dwarfs the fps'es? Just thinking.

[2is]

Originally Posted by Acanthus

Planetside -- Large 3 faction battle -- Esamir



I would say there are at least two active threads, because CPU utilization hits 45-55%.

I still find it strange that no single core gets pegged at 100%

Not strange at all, that's exactly how it typically works. If you think that's confusing, don't even bother looking at task manager on a CPU with Hyperthreading. That muddies up the waters a good bit unless you have a solid understanding of how the scheduler/task manager/HT all work together.... Actually "work together" is probably a bad phrase, how they "relate" is probably more accurate.

[Avalon]

Don't think it's the most CPU intensive, but Natural Selection 2 is the most demanding CPU intensive game I play. Game runs a crazy amount of LUA scripting, it absolutely kills CPU. It needs high clocks + high IPC.

[InsaneAdam]

Originally Posted by Avalon

Don't think it's the most CPU intensive, but Natural Selection 2 is the most demanding CPU intensive game I play. Game runs a crazy amount of LUA scripting, it absolutely kills CPU. It needs high clocks + high IPC.

Thanks, this is good to know. I was getting 20 frames or less with my 4 year old amd processor and 256 mb of video memory. Got a x79 board, 3820 sb-e, hyper 212+, msi 660 ti 2gb overclocked and quad channel 32gb (4x8) g.skill ripjaws @1600. All in the mail. I should be running Natural selection 2 @100+ fps like a boss.


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