Crysis Multiplayer CPU Usage

[Mandin62]

i have a E6600 @ 3.5Ghz. it handles pretty much everything i throw at it. its a good little proc. i would like to go quad but maybe in a bit. i was part of the Crysis multiplayer beta and i noticed that my CPU usage was at 98-100 the whole time i was playing. i monitor this through my G15 using Everest. is this going to be the case for the newer games. in the past almost no game i have ever played has used 100% of a CPU. did anyone else have this same problem and if so does anyone have a quad core that didnt have this issue? just wondering if Crysis is that optimized for quads.

I also experienced this same 100% usage well playing Medal of Honor: Airborne. I hope this isnt how these games all the time. i mean Supreme Commander doesnt even use that much.

One last thing would a updated graphics card help relieve some of the pressure from my CPU? i currently have a 7900 GT OC.

Thanks for any input and info you might have.

oh yeah im running vista ultimate x64. so maybe thats the issue. please dont be a vista hater and label that my issue. its a good os. and has been a nice update from xp. constructive input only please.

 

[SexyK]

Wait, are you complaining that it's using 100% CPU? I wish all games were sufficiently optimized for multi-core CPUs. What's the point of having a C2D @ 3.5GHz if you only want to use 75% or 50% of it's potential performance? The more usage the better in my book. I paid 100% of the price so I'm happy when I'm getting 100% of the performance!

 

[jdoggg12]

Originally posted by: SexyK
Wait, are you complaining that it's using 100% CPU? I wish all games were sufficiently optimized for multi-core CPUs. What's the point of having a C2D @ 3.5GHz if you only want to use 75% or 50% of it's potential performance? The more usage the better in my book. I paid 100% of the price so I'm happy when I'm getting 100% of the performance!

You realize hitting 100% cpu usage is a BAD thing right? Its like putting your gas pedal to the floor, but still needing more gas to go faster.

Mandin, i'm running an x2 3800+ @ 2.4 GHZ, 2GB RAM, 7800GT, and XP.... i get lots of stutters but my G15 never shows more than 80% utilization, even on high settings.

You run virus check to make sure you dont have something malicious running in the background?

 

[bamacre]

It is no surprise. From what I have read, quad core cpu's will run Crysis better.

Yet another reason I have been waiting for the game to actually be released before I upgrade anything in my computer.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Yes, it's optimised for quad core.

 

[Aikouka]

I'm still curious about one thing...

Is Crysis really that good that it needs a lot of power or is Crysis not optimized well that it requires a lot of power to run what it has?

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I'm still curious about one thing...

Is Crysis really that good that it needs a lot of power or is Crysis not optimized well that it requires a lot of power to run what it has?

Taking Far Cry, and preview videos of Crysis into consideration, I would definitely say that poor optimization is NOT likely the reason for it being a hardware-demanding game.

 

[Mandin62]

thank you jdogg12. 100% usage is a very bad thing. i would be happy if it was using 80% or so. i am going to stop some processes and see if i cant get some change when i run it. i understand its a beta but still its not that unoptimized if that a word. i have great faith in the devs that they know what they are doing. as for the looks it looks good. not amazing. but then again i am running on a kinda old GFX card and it is muliplayer. i expect great things for the single payer game after seeing what the muliplayer looks like. jdogg12 what kind of frame rates are you getting with everything on high? thanks for the input.

 

[SexyK]

I still fail to see how 100% usage is a bad thing. Would you prefer developers leave out features, dumb down physics and AI, or reduce graphical quality so that your processor can sit idle 20% of the time? To each his own I guess, but I'd rather have software that's optimized to maximize the hardware you throw at it.

 

[JAG87]

think of 100% cpu usage as flooring it in 1st gear.

you dont know how much faster the game could run since you are hitting 100% cpu usage. therefore its a bad thing.

now if it was running at 95% usage, then you know that your cpu is being used to its maximum potential without bottlenecking the game. but 100% is just a bad number.

 

[jdoggg12]

There's something wrong with my setup i think. Even on low settings at 800x600 i'm getting long stutters (.5-2 seconds) and poor framerrates. I updated to the latest beta drivers 163.71 which are supposed to be for Vista fixes. That helped a lot, on 1024x768 medium settings i'm getting 15-20fps average and 2-5 low. On high settings that drops to 8-15 max 10avg 1-2 low.

The beta is very buggy, but i can tell that if the bugs get worked out, it'll be an amazing game. On a side note, my computer doesn't struggle much on World in Conflict.

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: JAG87
think of 100% cpu usage as flooring it in 1st gear.

you dont know how much faster the game could run since you are hitting 100% cpu usage. therefore its a bad thing.

now if it was running at 95% usage, then you know that your cpu is being used to its maximum potential without bottlenecking the game. but 100% is just a bad number.

Eh, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. If the game isn't playing smoothly in your mind, then back down settings until you're comfortable. There's nothing inherently bad about having your CPU at 100% usage. It's not like being in first gear and flooring it, unless you're using a Pentium 3. A C2D or C2Q at 100% is more like cruising down the autobahn at 185mph in a BMW 760Li.

 

[Fraggable]

Games in the past always used 100% CPU time even if they didn't really need it. For years and years they were like that. It's just been more recently that I've seen some games like Rainbox six: Vegas and Bioshock use less than 100% of my CPU time.

That said, Crysis beta is only using about 80% of my 6750 @ stock 2.67GHz. I have a 8800GTS 320 so maybe less GPU power=more CPU power needed?

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: JAG87
think of 100% cpu usage as flooring it in 1st gear.

you dont know how much faster the game could run since you are hitting 100% cpu usage. therefore its a bad thing.

now if it was running at 95% usage, then you know that your cpu is being used to its maximum potential without bottlenecking the game. but 100% is just a bad number.

Eh, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. If the game isn't playing smoothly in your mind, then back down settings until you're comfortable. There's nothing inherently bad about having your CPU at 100% usage. It's not like being in first gear and flooring it, unless you're using a Pentium 3. A C2D or C2Q at 100% is more like cruising down the autobahn at 185mph in a BMW 760Li.

What he means is that if your cpu usage is at 100%, it makes you think you need a faster cpu so that you could get more out of the game.

So, hypothetically, from his point of view, cpu usage of 99% consistently would mean you have just the cpu power you need. Because if it is using 100%, you really have no idea if you could be utilizing more, or if it is perfect. And perfection not being likley, you'd obviously think you'd be better off with more cpu power.

 

[jdoggg12]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: JAG87
think of 100% cpu usage as flooring it in 1st gear.

you dont know how much faster the game could run since you are hitting 100% cpu usage. therefore its a bad thing.

now if it was running at 95% usage, then you know that your cpu is being used to its maximum potential without bottlenecking the game. but 100% is just a bad number.

Eh, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. If the game isn't playing smoothly in your mind, then back down settings until you're comfortable. There's nothing inherently bad about having your CPU at 100% usage. It's not like being in first gear and flooring it, unless you're using a Pentium 3. A C2D or C2Q at 100% is more like cruising down the autobahn at 185mph in a BMW 760Li.

What he means is that if your cpu usage is at 100%, it makes you think you need a faster cpu so that you could get more out of the game.

So, hypothetically, from his point of view, cpu usage of 99% consistently would mean you have just the cpu power you need. Because if it is using 100%, you really have no idea if you could be utilizing more, or if it is perfect. And perfection not being likley, you'd obviously think you'd be better off with more cpu power.

:thumbsup:

 

[Fraggable]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: JAG87
think of 100% cpu usage as flooring it in 1st gear.

you dont know how much faster the game could run since you are hitting 100% cpu usage. therefore its a bad thing.

now if it was running at 95% usage, then you know that your cpu is being used to its maximum potential without bottlenecking the game. but 100% is just a bad number.

Eh, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. If the game isn't playing smoothly in your mind, then back down settings until you're comfortable. There's nothing inherently bad about having your CPU at 100% usage. It's not like being in first gear and flooring it, unless you're using a Pentium 3. A C2D or C2Q at 100% is more like cruising down the autobahn at 185mph in a BMW 760Li.

What he means is that if your cpu usage is at 100%, it makes you think you need a faster cpu so that you could get more out of the game.

So, hypothetically, from his point of view, cpu usage of 99% consistently would mean you have just the cpu power you need. Because if it is using 100%, you really have no idea if you could be utilizing more, or if it is perfect. And perfection not being likley, you'd obviously think you'd be better off with more cpu power.

Well yeah and that's true, but the problem is that it's nearly impossible to tell how much more power you could take advantage of unless you get new CPU fast enough to make the game use less than 100% of its power, which seems impossible considering he's already got a 3.5GHz C2D. There are so many variables between other systems to be able to figure out if his particular system has an issue that's making it max out the CPU when it shouldn't. Like I said, my 2.4GHz C2D isn't maxed out but I have a faster GPU than him and probably more RAM (4GB).

Then again, this is a beta. It doesn't even have a lot of the physics stuff I saw in demos (punctured tires, etc.). You can't expect its performance to be great and use all resources as it should.

 

[aka1nas]

Remember folks, CPU usage in the Windows Task manager refers to CPU time only. You would hope an interactive application such as a game would grab the CPU whenever it is available. That has nothing to do with whether it is "maxing out" the resources on the CPU or not.

 

[jdoggg12]

^ How's that PhysX PPU working out for you?

 

[Mandin62]

I too have 4gb of ram. maybe its the cpu trying to make up for the graphics card. even when everything is on low and i am running 1280x1024. its still 99-100% all the time. i dont really feel like i need a better i mean quad core would be nice but i am not that eager to upgrade at the moment i just got my way to expensive water cooling setup installed and well i dont really wan to take it apart again to install a new proc. and when i do it will be a new proc and graphics card. that is all besides the point though. i stopped a lot of processes and no good. ran a virus scan nothing, restarted, installed new drivers, the works. and nothing. i am not too worried about it as it is beta but still i mean if this is a sign to come that a 3.5ghz core 2 cant even play games then wow there are going to be alot of people left out of this outstanding line up of games that are coming out.

SexyK i dont want devs to leave things out. i want crysis and every game that i play to be filled with as much detail as possible. its just not a good thing for performance when you hitting 100%. maybe i have other quarks in my system that need ironing out. i dont know. i guess i have a month+ to figure it out before crysis is released. thanks again for all the input. ill get back to you on my frame rates. is there a way to use a console setting to monitor that in game?

 

[Fraggable]

if this is a sign to come that a 3.5ghz core 2 cant even play games then wow there are going to be alot of people left out of this outstanding line up of games that are coming out.

3.5GHz C2D is way faster than any retail CPU out there, your CPU is not the bottleneck here. Your video card is definitely the weak spot. A 8800GTX would be an ideal match with that CPU.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
Remember folks, CPU usage in the Windows Task manager refers to CPU time only. You would hope an interactive application such as a game would grab the CPU whenever it is available. That has nothing to do with whether it is "maxing out" the resources on the CPU or not.

Not to mention that if a game is using both cores they of course it'll be 100%. I bet if you had a 5Ghz C2D on some exotic cooling running the game for a minute it would also say 100%.

The game is set to use every bit of power it can regardless if it's single core 2Ghz at 100% or dual core 3Ghz.

 

[AzN]

Game is supposed to do this so you get faster frame rates. It's not supposed to hang back and use 80% of CPU power with only 80% of the frame rate.

 

[biostud]

all singlecore games uses 100% or very close when running and it has never been a problem, so I fail to see how this differ in a multicore environment.

 

[Skacer]

Originally posted by: Fraggable
Games in the past always used 100% CPU time even if they didn't really need it. For years and years they were like that. It's just been more recently that I've seen some games like Rainbox six: Vegas and Bioshock use less than 100% of my CPU time.

That said, Crysis beta is only using about 80% of my 6750 @ stock 2.67GHz. I have a 8800GTS 320 so maybe less GPU power=more CPU power needed?

Phew, for a second there I thought I was the only one who realized most games pre-dualcore did this.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Skacer
Phew, for a second there I thought I was the only one who realized most games pre-dualcore did this.

Actually, any game designer that claims their game to be dualcore or quadcore enabled, that doesn't do this, is simply lying through their teeth. If they had actually been designed from the outset to use x amount of cores, they would actually use x amount of cores at 100% usage.