Core Confusion!!! Any help please?

[Feuerfalke]

XP can run multithreaded applications (how many are there?) and it also can use both cores or multiple CPUs, no doubt!

But it does not benefit that much from it. When both CPUs are used for one multithreaded application (like Photoshop, 3DS-MAX or other professional, very hardwareintensive programs), XP always is slower in the benchmarks than Vista, especially in the comparison of XP64 and Vista64. Even with packing- or video-tools and also loading times for games.

And if you assign the program to 2 cores, you'll get stutters. That's not only true for IL2, but also for modern titles like UT3, which even supports multiple CPU and GPU.
But if it was just the game, why does it run smooth as silk with Vista and 2 cores assigned?

Same is for BlackShark. It basically uses the same engine from LockOn1.0, so it wasn't expected to get any performance-gain in Vista and infact the devs always said they take no guarantee it even runs without problems.
People learned it did run and it ran faster with 2 cores assigned. Not only faster than on one core, but most of the time much faster than with XP.
There is a thread about this, with some people reporting a 30% advantage with Vista64bit SP1 over XP SP3!

There's just one big difference between those benchmarks mentioned by CaptStubing and those reported there: AERO.

If you install XP and Vista and run the game on the same system with the same hardware, you will have a slight advantage with XP still. I tested it for weeks with different programs and games. BUT if you activate the option to disable desktop-design while running the program, the advantage is noteable with Vista.

Remember, we have 3 Service-Packs for XP and we all know what things to enable or disable with XP to get the most out of it. But most people running these benchmarks know little about Vista, most of them can't even be neutral, enable sidebar and AERO with full transparency and I've seen no test on a Vista-Rig that is optimized for gaming, except that thread over at the DCS-forums.


Maybe Microsoft is going the wrong way, optimizing their OS for users, not for gamers, but this whole thing has become a holy war: Prejudgements, 3rd hand information and based on test with biased circumstances, with very few people willing to test it first hand.

[Buster_Dee]

Thanks for comments. I won't do much checking, as it's very playable, even at max settings. I think the large airports are rough because of unique textures. I do some modelling, and textures are a bigger FPS killer than complex mesh/high poly counts. I don't mean to sound flippant. Fact is, I'm currently buried trying to refine textures on a current project. At present, it would probably take down a power grid. I only play enough FS to screw up the courage to get back to work

[Feuerfalke]

I recommend this thread:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=35091


Over 16 pages, in the meanwhile, with broad testing base on SP1 Vista and the benefits compared to XP. Average FPS-gain against XP: 15-25 on the same rig! (= mostly optimized XP-installations) - peaks are about 45FPS gain.

There are also frequent report of graphics glitches from the engine disappearing with WinVista and Win7.


Besides that JFYI, TX-EcoDragon did not disable Aero in the background, as well as the initial test from SimHQ did not. Additionally the later did not even have drivers for the soundcard, was running an unpatched version of Vista and used the first WHQL-Drivers for Vista. As quite understandable, the first WHQL were made for safety, not for performance.

[TX-EcoDragon]

Originally Posted by JG27CaptStubing

. . .Here is an example. Black Shark was released about a month ago. Guys had learned to have it use more than one core in Vista. What they found out was they did get a performance boost. Guys that are running in XP wouldn't get any performance boost the guys in Vista did because the XP guys were ALREADY getting the same performance out of the gate on one core.

That's not so, at least not for BlackShark.

I had wondered if that was the case, I saw that people with Vista had nice gains with the second core enabled, but I couldn't determine how that might compare to what I was seeing with XP. Along came the Windows 7 beta, so I decided to find out. I set up a dual boot, and compared BlackShark on Windows XP 32bit to Windows 7 64bit. The difference between identical hardware at identical graphics settings was quite obvious (OK so some had 2 gigs vs 4 gigs of RAM but my benchmark comparisons suggested that it made no fps difference, also different is the much older slower HDD for Win7) Performance with both cores enabled is much better than in XP with one or more cores enabled - minimum fps went way up, and max and average saw nice gains as well. . .better than any hardware upgrade would get anyone with a fairly recent computer, and better than a 1GHz overclock on the CPU!! My other sims didn't see such gains, most saw slight losses - but very, very, slight. I did only one comparison with AERO on vs OFF and honestly think there was no change. Some sims do have issues with it being on (Like FSX, which disables it for you when you launch), but supposedly it should be disabled when in the background anyway. In any case, I even run my XP installation with all the transparent text backgrounds, animated windows, and colored titled bars etc turned off. So my benches are comparing the leanest possible XP, against Win 7 with all the fluff running.

Here's the few benchmarks I did in some of my sims comparing Win XP to Win 7: http://www.txsquadron.com/forum/index.php?topic=2675.0

OK, the TX site is down for maintenance for a bit, since that link might not be working I'll post the full BlackShark results for an extremely hardware challenging mission here:



Windows 7 Preliminary testing in BlackShark has some very interesting results!!

Remember the run posted above for 3.06 GHz? Well, no need to go look up there for it. . .here it is:

Windows XP E8400 @ 3.06 GHz (speedstep enabled) DX9.0c 2x1Gigs of PC8000 RAM at 850Mhz, 8800GTS (G92) at stock clocks 178.24 drivers
Frames: 16232 - Time: 480193ms - Avg: 33.803 - Min: 5 - Max: 61

The following is the same run as above, but in Windows 7, with DirectX11, all other settings the same ( more than 2 gigs of RAM doesn't appear to make a difference in BS):

Windows7 core 0 E8400 @ 3.06 GHz (speedstep enable) D11 2x2gigs PC8500 at 850Mhz, 8800GTS (G92) at stock clocks 178.24 drivers
Frames: 13802 - Time: 480225ms - Avg: 28.740 - Min: 7 - Max: 60

So that's not so great. . .at this point it's not looking very good for Windows 7. . .but it's supposed to run like a better version of Vista, which supposedly is strong in Black Shark. . .so what gives? Ahhh, the CPU affinity trick you say?? Well, lets see if that makes up the lost performance!

For this run, settings are the same, only I enable both CPU cores in the taskmanager:

Windows7 (64) core 0+1 core E8400 @ 3.06 GHz (speedstep enabled) DX11 2x2gigs PC8500 at 850Mhz, 8800GTS (G92) at stock clocks 178.24 drivers
Frames: 21729 - Time: 480340ms - Avg: 45.236 - Min: 23 - Max: 62

So umm. . . can you say AWESOME?!??!!!?! Not only did I get the lost performance back, but I set something of a personal record for this benchmark!!! If you take a look at my previously posted Windows XP runs the best I ever managed, when overclocked to 3.9GHz was - Avg: 42.185 - Min: 10 - Max: 62. Nearly a 1GHz Overclock doesn't do as much as just running Win 7 instead of XP!!


Even my runs at 3.960GHz with 2x2Gigs of PC8500 RAM at 1100MHz, only averaged: 44.439fps. . .so simply running Windows 7, and using both CPU cores gave me .8 avg fps better performance at a stock 3.06 Ghz than at just about 4.0 GHz on XP!!!!!!

Now to see how this performance scales with overclocking, here's some 3.96GHz runs:

Windows XP 32 E8400 @ 3.960GHz 2x2Gigs of PC8500 RAM at 1100MHz, 8800GTS (G92) at stock clocks vSynch and triple buff on on 178.24 drivers
Frames: 21281 - Time: 480107ms - Avg: 44.439 - Min: 10 - Max: 63


Windows7 (64) core 0+1 E8400 @ 3.960GHz 2x2Gigs of PC8500 RAM at 1100MHz, 8800GTS (G92) at stock clocks 178.24 drivers vSynch ON
Frames: 26647 - Time: 480074ms - Avg: 55.506 - Min: 27 - Max: 62

OK, since most review sites and such disable vSynch to generate fps data, here's a run in that situation which shows the all out performance increase:

Windows7 (64) core 0+1 E8400 @ 3.960GHz 2x2Gigs of PC8500 RAM at 1100MHz, 8800GTS (G92) at stock clocks 178.24 drivers vSynch OFF
Frames: 28235 - Time: 479994ms - Avg: 58.823 - Min: 32 - Max: 93

Impressive results no? Under the same conditions I had an increase of 11.1 frames per second better on average when overclocked to 3.96 1100MHz DDR2, and 14.4 frames per second better when vSynch and triple buffering are forced off in the driver control panel (the normal way in which benchmarks are run).

Perhaps most impressive is the minimum fps. . .they are almost as good as the average fps at stock clocks!!!! My track really killed the fps in a flew places on XP, but with 7, and both CPU cores, that's gone!!!!!

[Feuerfalke]

Thanks for posting, TX-EcoDragon!

I'd like to add, that this is NOT due to the DCS-Engine supporting multiple-core architecture. It is still the old LockOn-Engine, enhanced by modern DX-features and increased workload through physics, polygons and texture number and size.


Looking at the comments and pre-release statements, even ED didn't expect that advantage.

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

Yeah, just seems to be a pleasant fluke and by accident not design.....but its all good

[Thunderbolt56]

TX-Ecodragon posted this a long time ago. I guess it's still relevant if you're runnig IL2 and XP:



Some interesting info here about MS hotfixes and such for Dual Core performance increases:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416

http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Quake...Core.htm#INTEL

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofivers...p/t545980.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896256

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909944


S!

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

XP can run multithreaded applications (how many are there?) and it also can use both cores or multiple CPUs, no doubt!

But it does not benefit that much from it. When both CPUs are used for one multithreaded application (like Photoshop, 3DS-MAX or other professional, very hardwareintensive programs), XP always is slower in the benchmarks than Vista, especially in the comparison of XP64 and Vista64. Even with packing- or video-tools and also loading times for games.

I don't think you really know what you're talking about. Applications such as PhotoShop 3DS Max etc are going to run better on a Vista 64 bit platform simple because that OS is the most supported. Microsoft's support for XP 64 has always been poor and only until Vista64 came out has a 64 bit OS been strongly supported. But... That's apples and trash cans when it comes to XP32 Vista32 and Vista64 especially when it comes to games.

Modern games in general have always been mutithreaded however they have not always been supported ie. IL2. It causes problems such as stutters so for some time now it has been better to assign a single FAST cpu to the game. Well that's changed and it will continue into the future as GAME developers start to take advantage of Multicore platforms since they are becoming the norm.

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

And if you assign the program to 2 cores, you'll get stutters. That's not only true for IL2, but also for modern titles like UT3, which even supports multiple CPU and GPU.
But if it was just the game, why does it run smooth as silk with Vista and 2 cores assigned?

Your deductive reasoning has some flaws. Just because one game runs worse with supposed multi cpu/core support doesn't mean it has to do with the OS. Games have to be specifically tuned to take advantage of the technology. Writing applications that take use of these new cores are much more complex to write. There serious overhead involved and if you don't do it right you can have problems.

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

Same is for BlackShark. It basically uses the same engine from LockOn1.0, so it wasn't expected to get any performance-gain in Vista and infact the devs always said they take no guarantee it even runs without problems.
People learned it did run and it ran faster with 2 cores assigned. Not only faster than on one core, but most of the time much faster than with XP.
There is a thread about this, with some people reporting a 30% advantage with Vista64bit SP1 over XP SP3!

Lets get your facts straight. Vista runs BS better than WinXP with multiple cores no doubt! However when comparing actual performance the 30% you note is not an advantage at all. Its actually running it as fast as the guys who run it in WinXP. In fact there are some known problems running BS in XP.

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

There's just one big difference between those benchmarks mentioned by CaptStubing and those reported there: AERO.

Even with Aero turned off games under both Vista OSs are just now starting to do as well as XP. That's a year and a half later after the release of the OS. Vista promised better performance out of the gate. It's a known fact it did very poorly up until the release of SP1 for Vista.

The new WWI flight sim coming out based upon the IL2 engine is reporting a 30-40% increase with a quad over the dual core.

Here is a recent list of games that support mulitple CPUs or Cores.

==================Quad Core=====================================
Alan Wake - Ground up quad core support.
Bioshock (Unreal Engine 3) - Quad core support.
Call Of Duty 4 - Ground up quad core support.
Company of Heroes - Ground up quad core support
Crysis - MP Beta Dual Core support, full game ground up Quad Core support.
DiRT - Ground up quad core support (up to 8 cores reported).
Flight Simulator X - Quad core support with patch.
Lost Planet - Ground up quad core support. (octa core support as well).
MOH: Airborn (Unreal Engine 3) - Ground up quad core support.
Supreme Commander - Ground up quad core support.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - Quad core ground up, can use 5 threads.
World in Conflict - Ground up quad core support.
Unreal Tournament 3 (Unreal Engine 3) - Ground up quad core support.
==================Dual Core=====================================
Age of Empires 3 - Dual core support.
Call of Duty 2 with 1.01 smp patch - Dual Core support
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Native dual core support (possible quad, need confirmation).
EVE online - Dual core (possible quad core, need confirmation)
Falcon 4.0 - Some Support, extent unknown.
Galactic Civilizations II - Dual core support.
Gothic 3 - Dual core support.
HL2: Orangebox - Dual core support
Stalker - Dual core support with 1.0004 patch.
Quake 4 - Dual Core with patch.
Titan quest + Titan quest Immortal Throne - Dual core with patch.
World of Warcraft - Dual Core with patch.

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt56

TX-Ecodragon posted this a long time ago. I guess it's still relevant if you're runnig IL2 and XP:



Some interesting info here about MS hotfixes and such for Dual Core performance increases:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416

http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Quake...Core.htm#INTEL

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofivers...p/t545980.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896256

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909944


S!

These are fixes right at the time games were starting to take advantage of multiple cores and CPUs. FSX didn't even support multicore until SP1 which was like a year later. Note the dates on some of those subjects. They are 3 years old.

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

I recommend this thread:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=35091


Over 16 pages, in the meanwhile, with broad testing base on SP1 Vista and the benefits compared to XP. Average FPS-gain against XP: 15-25 on the same rig! (= mostly optimized XP-installations) - peaks are about 45FPS gain.

There are also frequent report of graphics glitches from the engine disappearing with WinVista and Win7.


Besides that JFYI, TX-EcoDragon did not disable Aero in the background, as well as the initial test from SimHQ did not. Additionally the later did not even have drivers for the soundcard, was running an unpatched version of Vista and used the first WHQL-Drivers for Vista. As quite understandable, the first WHQL were made for safety, not for performance.

That's good news.... If there is a difference it could be related to drivers changing. Clearly support for Vista is stronger than ever. That's a good thing since it was a failed OS since its release.

There is a reason why they are renaming windows back to windows version 7.

It took a long time for vendors to fix their drivers and for MS to fix some major problems Vista had. No doubt I will be switching to Windows 7 and a 64 bit OS. It is just now making sense.