Aces High is...All CPU?

[titanic3]

Looks like it. I was curious today and did some testing looking at my CPU usage and GPU. Apparently, without self shadowing turned on, my GPU (Radeon 6870) only uses 11-15%. When I turn it on and set it at 8192 resolution, I get a jump to 50-60% usage. I still have 60 FPS at this point with bump map terrain, bump map self, detailed terrain/water, reflections and detail slider at max.

The following are turned on in addition with these: bump map terrain, bump map self, detailed terrain/water, reflections and detail slider at max.

Turning on the environmental slider to full only drops my FPS to the 20-30 range.
Turning on Shadows on Others only drops it to 30-40 FPS.
Turning on bump map buildings only, it stays at 60 FPS.
Turning on bump map others only drops it to 40-50 FPS.

This was done at a rather busy airfield in the tower, in F5 mode. About 15-20 players within icon range. Probably a few more beyond that.

Turning everything on drops my FPS to the 10-15 range. Unplayable.

However, during this entire time, my GPU usage never exceeded 70%. My CPU however was nearing max load, a Quad Core Q9550 @ 2.83Ghz.

I keep shadows at 4096 res and turn on smooth shadows, along with bump map terrain, bump map self, detailed terrain/water, reflections and detail slider at max. These settings keep my FPS at 60 even in 30+ players environment. Turning on 8192 shadows cause my FPS to dip to the low 40s in 30+ players areas. But a steady 60FPS otherwise.
With 4096 res shadows/smooth shadows, my GPU usage is only 30%.

So the point of this thread is to ask how come AH is so CPU dependent? Wouldn't it be better to even the workload of the CPU and GPU so that players may achieve higher FPS if they have a low/med-end CPU? Why only make self shadows use the GPU?

[Midway]

Looks like it. I was curious today and did some testing looking at my CPU usage and GPU. Apparently, without self shadowing turned on, my GPU (Radeon 6870) only uses 11-15%. When I turn it on and set it at 8192 resolution, I get a jump to 50-60% usage. I still have 60 FPS at this point with bump map terrain, bump map self, detailed terrain/water, reflections and detail slider at max.

The following are turned on in addition with these: bump map terrain, bump map self, detailed terrain/water, reflections and detail slider at max.

Turning on the environmental slider to full only drops my FPS to the 20-30 range.
Turning on Shadows on Others only drops it to 30-40 FPS.
Turning on bump map buildings only, it stays at 60 FPS.
Turning on bump map others only drops it to 40-50 FPS.

This was done at a rather busy airfield in the tower, in F5 mode. About 15-20 players within icon range. Probably a few more beyond that.

Turning everything on drops my FPS to the 10-15 range. Unplayable.

However, during this entire time, my GPU usage never exceeded 70%. My CPU however was nearing max load, a Quad Core Q9550 @ 2.83Ghz.

I keep shadows at 4096 res and turn on smooth shadows, along with bump map terrain, bump map self, detailed terrain/water, reflections and detail slider at max. These settings keep my FPS at 60 even in 30+ players environment. Turning on 8192 shadows cause my FPS to dip to the low 40s in 30+ players areas. But a steady 60FPS otherwise.
With 4096 res shadows/smooth shadows, my GPU usage is only 30%.

So the point of this thread is to ask how come AH is so CPU dependent? Wouldn't it be better to even the workload of the CPU and GPU so that players may achieve higher FPS if they have a low/med-end CPU? Why only make self shadows use the GPU?

Aces High uses all the multiple cpu cores?  Not on my pc.  I use max about 25% of my CPU.  Intel i7-3770k @ 3.5 MHz 4 cores, 8 logical processors. 12 gig mem.

[Ack-Ack]

The GPU can't really be used to take some of the load off the CPU for things like the physics used in the flight model which is CPU intensive for the calculations.  Which is why the game has been optimized for awhile to use multi-CPU cores.

ack-ack

[Ardy123]

The GPU can't really be used to take some of the load off the CPU for things like the physics used in the flight model which is CPU intensive for the calculations.  Which is why the game has been optimized for awhile to use multi-CPU cores.

ack-ack

Many physics calculations can be calculated on the GPU.... One can use OpenCL, DirectCompute, Cuda etc...

[tunnelrat]

Some games require you to have specialized graphics capabilities in order to get any physics beyond the basics.

Again, it comes down to the size of the development house, vs the lowest common denominator on the customer side hardware wise, vs the return on development investment.

This is the only game I have played with such a massive crowd of people who literally don't play any other game(s).  Those of us that have modern gaming rigs are probably in the minority.

[save]

I had a AMD cpu, dual core, was on low 40's fps , switched cpu to a I7 quad core, and suddenly with same settings and graphics card, I was going steady 60, so CPU does matter.

[MrKrabs]

I had a AMD cpu, dual core, was on low 40's fps , switched cpu to a I7 quad core, and suddenly with same settings and graphics card, I was going steady 60, so CPU does matter.

Are you sure its not because you're using an integrated board?

[Karnak]

Are you sure its not because you're using an integrated board?

How could he go from an AMD X2 to an I7 with the same video card if the video card were integrated?  AMD and Intel motherboards are 100% incompatible.

[Motherland]

Figured out how to turn on my video card a couple of months ago after being severely disappointed with how the game performed on my new laptop with an i7, but forgot to check out how the game ran, and I haven't played in a while so I guess that makes sense.
I can run practically maxed, and i have a billion processes that I need to clean up.
So, having a dedicated video card definitely matters, even if it's due in large part to taking strain off the CPU

[Debrody]

The more simple a game's graphics is, the more chance it has to be CPU-limited.

AH's graphics's older contents, such as the land, the see, the trees etc are very simple, any GPU can do them very quickly. With medium setting, there wont be any difference between an i7-hd4670 and an i7-gtx680 combination, as the CPU (or the monitor's refresh rate, or in some extreme cases, the GPU's ROP section) is the limiting factor.

In the other hand, the newer content, such as the reflections, the high resolution shadows, grass etc are very GPU-intensive. With a good card, it might be equal, what CPU are you using, as long as its not an extremely weak one, of course. In fact, you wont really notice any difference between an old PhenomIIx4 or an i7 system, as the GPU is the limiting factor.

[titanic3]

The more simple a game's graphics is, the more chance it has to be CPU-limited.

AH's graphics's older contents, such as the land, the see, the trees etc are very simple, any GPU can do them very quickly. With medium setting, there wont be any difference between an i7-hd4670 and an i7-gtx680 combination, as the CPU (or the monitor's refresh rate, or in some extreme cases, the GPU's ROP section) is the limiting factor.

In the other hand, the newer content, such as the reflections, the high resolution shadows, grass etc are very GPU-intensive. With a good card, it might be equal, what CPU are you using, as long as its not an extremely weak one, of course. In fact, you wont really notice any difference between an old PhenomIIx4 or an i7 system, as the GPU is the limiting factor.

That's the thing, from my test, only the shadows had any real impact on GPU usage. I was using MSI Afterburner to test it. Even with the environmental map at max, the GPU usage only went up by 3-5%. Which is nothing. Almost all games I play, the GPU is always in the 90% range.