Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: atlau on November 16, 2016, 09:51:29 PM
-
Does AH3 benefit from 4+ cores? Im looking to build a new computer to replace my laptop and it's the only game I play. Basically wondering if an i5 would make any significant improvement over an i3. On the other hand if AH3 benefits from more cores should i consider AMD? Looking for the best bang for the buck and maybe put any cost savings towards a better GPU.
-
Does AH3 benefit from 4+ cores? Im looking to build a new computer to replace my laptop and it's the only game I play. Basically wondering if an i5 would make any significant improvement over an i3. On the other hand if AH3 benefits from more cores should i consider AMD? Looking for the best bang for the buck and maybe put any cost savings towards a better GPU.
I would strongly suggest an upgrade on your GPU.
I went from CPU: Phenom 965 (4 Core) to an FX8350 (8 core). Noticed no difference in the game.
Then I upgraded my GPU: EVGA GTX 660 to an EVGA GTX 970 and the improvement was amazing.
Coogan
-
AH2 used only 2 cores, it was written that way I believe.
AH3? I believe it too, uses only 2 cores, as written.
Windows has its own way of multitasking???
AH3 switched to a GPU dominant world. AH2 was a cpu bound world.
So get as better a vid card, as your current cpu can handle, imo. advice already given lol
:salute
-
MADe is right as far as I can remember what's been written here.
Adding to that, it's been said that the single core speed should be above 3 GHz. Two cores will run AH well, but the background tasks of your computer might use the rest so a quad core is a good choice if your budget allows. Intel has a little better reputation than AMD, there was some issue in the past certain AMD models only being able to use one core for AH.
-
Thanks for the replies. I was leaning towards an i5 so I'll stick with that. Value proposition wise I'm eying the gtx 1060 or the AMD 480 to pair with it. Any thoughts? Any reason to get more than 3gb vram?
-
I just built a puter with a dual core i3 6100 and 3 GB GTX 1060. I'm using a 1680 by 1050 monitor. I recently checked and with all normal background processes and AH3 the cpu is running maybe 50%. With all graphics turned up I usually get a steady 60 fps. My monitor is currently limiting frame rate. If I turn off VSync and fly offline the frame rate then ranges from about 50 to about 180 fps. Also, again with graphics maxed out, AH3 seems to use only about half of my 3 Gb video ram.
Punch line, I agree with the others, put the $ into the GPU. I think you'd be fine with an I3 if you want to save more $ there, and don't think going with more than 3 GB VRAM is needed unless maybe if you want to run a 4k monitor. I also seem to recall that unless the game uses a lot of hyperthreading, which I think AH3 does not, you may actually get better CPU performance with a dual core. I don't have time to look that up now....perhaps later today....
-
Actually, Aces High III can make use of 3 cores, at times. That said, Windows still needs cores as well. Quad core is a good choice, as long as it is not a slow quad core.
I would pick the gtx 1060 over the AMD 480. 3GB of dedicated video RAM will be enough for Aces High III.
-
Thanks Skuzzy. Does that apply to the 4k graphics requirements as well?
-
As far as game resources are concerned, 4K monitors only impact the final frame buffer, but it takes a lot of GPU power to supply that many pixels at a decent frame rate.
Not sure the 1060 is the best choice for 4K support, but that is more mathematical than application as I do not have access to a 4K monitor, at the moment.
-
I would strongly suggest an upgrade on your GPU.
I went from CPU: Phenom 965 (4 Core) to an FX8350 (8 core). Noticed no difference in the game.
Then I upgraded my GPU: EVGA GTX 660 to an EVGA GTX 970 and the improvement was amazing.
Coogan
Funny. I just upgraded my GTX 660 to a GTX1060 still got my old CPU amd phenom 925 4 core and so far I can't get it to run max details.
-
Funny. I just upgraded my GTX 660 to a GTX1060 still got my old CPU amd phenom 925 4 core and so far I can't get it to run max details.
Should easily run with everything at maximum, except environmental mapping. Still need that left at the first notch. Basically, hit the "Default" button at the Options->Graphic Detail page.
Go offline and use CM God's Eye mode to get above the terrain a good bit.
If you look up, with no clouds in the sky, you should be getting close to a 1000 FPS (theoretical maximum). I know a 980Ti will do that and the 1060 is close to, if not faster, than the 980Ti.
-
Hi Skuzzy,
You have me now wondering about my decision to go with the i3 6100; at any rate the machine is now built and overall I'm quite happy with it and it's a huge improvement over what I had. I have the 3 GB 1060 and just tried the CM Godseye thing you suggested, turned off Vsync, then environment mapping to none, and only got about 600 fps in the far blue sky, as opposed to the 1,000 you mentioned, with essentially a 1080 p monitor. I used task manager to record CPU usage and that was only about 50-60% max. Does this suggest that somehow the CPU is limiting, or some limitation with the GPU perhaps?
So you have me curious about when the 3 CPU cores you referenced would be useful, presumably perhaps in FSO's when we have a lot of fighters escorting buffs and get jumped so there are planes in the air everywhere, for example?
Am inclined to upgrade to a 1440p monitor next, but you got me thinking about upgrading my CPU if I'm not happy with eye-candy/frames rates when I upgrade the monitor.
Thanks for any perspective you can add.
-
The 980Ti we have in the office is being driven with an i7-4790. I may be over-estimating the 1060 performance, but according to comparisons I have read, it should be close to the 980Ti in performance.
Are you running with everything at default settings in the game? My test was also done at 1920x1080 resolution. Anything higher would impact the performance.
It is important to get to about 30 to 40 thousand feet when doing the test.
-
I'm primarily an ATI guy but the GTX1060 is the sweetspot within the cash/performance/power usage formula.
-
...hope I'm not hijacking your thread atlau, but am thinking this is relevant to the general topic....
........
Are you running with everything at default settings in the game? My test was also done at 1920x1080 resolution. Anything higher would impact the performance.
It is important to get to about 30 to 40 thousand feet when doing the test.
Thanks for your quick reply Skuzzy, I had most of my graphics settings maxed out, then went to default as you suggested, loaded the Dueling Terrain (no clouds) went max throttle waaaaaayyy out into the blue (not sure how to tell alt in CM godseye), still got only a max of about 630 fps, although my GPU usage was up showing about 60-70+% on Task Manager. My resolution is actually a bit lower at 1680 x 1050.
No big deal for me, don't want to chew up your time, if it gives you some useful clues you can share great, if not all is well.
Thanks again!
I'm primarily an ATI guy but the GTX1060 is the sweetspot within the cash/performance/power usage formula.
icepac I agree and that's why I went with the 1060, the i3 6100 seems similar that way for CPU's assuming these componenets give you enough of what you want.
-
Not at all hijacked Daddy Ace... I'm actually curious following your questions as im wanting to make sure the 1060 will suffice. I basically want to build a system that can run full graphics without buying more than I need.
-
Oh good atlau, you likely saw this, but in case you didn't, this was what I came up with: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,382567.0.html
My goals were similar to yours, although I went with a more expensive case & Mobo than I need to, because I wanted lots of USB ports, etc.
Best of luck with your build; I'll be interested in what you do.
:cheers:
-
Should easily run with everything at maximum, except environmental mapping. Still need that left at the first notch. Basically, hit the "Default" button at the Options->Graphic Detail page.
Go offline and use CM God's Eye mode to get above the terrain a good bit.
If you look up, with no clouds in the sky, you should be getting close to a 1000 FPS (theoretical maximum). I know a 980Ti will do that and the 1060 is close to, if not faster, than the 980Ti.
From what ive seen the 980ti and 1070 are neck and neck . The 1060 and 980 (non ti ) are within 2- 5 fps in a bunch of the benchmarks ive seen .
-
Oh good atlau, you likely saw this, but in case you didn't, this was what I came up with: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,382567.0.html
My goals were similar to yours, although I went with a more expensive case & Mobo than I need to, because I wanted lots of USB ports, etc.
Best of luck with your build; I'll be interested in what you do.
:cheers:
Yes I actually had found that thread in my search. I'm hoping to find some good deals after Thanksgiving! Tired of playing on my laptop:)
-
Based on another thread where monitoring CPU usage was mentioned, I did a short test.
I have an Intel E8500 Core2Duo @ 3.8 GHz and a Radeon HD 6870, relatively old hardware as you can see...
So I opened the Task Manager, started AH3 DX11 online, Mission arena, joined the ongoing mission for maximized action, followed the AI group home and while they were landing I flew low over the field and town which always drops my frame rate. Alt-tabbed several times during various stages and the CPU usage was 0% all of the time! AH3 was in the top 5 of CPU usage, though, so instead of looking at the percentage table I opened the graph tab and redid the test. It appeared that during being being minimized AH3 doesn't stress the CPU, but the graph showed that during playing the CPU usage was between 5 and 50 % on Core 1 and 5 to 30 % on Core 2.
So it seems that the CPU rarely is the bottleneck. However, this test was very short. Maybe tonight when I have time to play a little longer I'll do some further testing using the graph method. Hints for a better way to check this are welcome.
-
Sorry Bizman, have no hints for you on better ways to monitor cpu usage, but I did learn something from your post. I've been using the Task Manager graph to monitor cpu usage overall, but did not realize you could look at each core separately. I've since found that now for future use thanks to you mentioning it. :aok
-
HWinfo may come in handy
-
Provided in attachments below are snippets of Resource Monitor showing the CPU core usage and affinity between AHIII Patch 10 using Dx9 vs Dx11..........
Note how the game when using Dx9 is working my CPU much more than when using Dx11, both per core and total usage %.
The game has tested w\ the OS to follow the CPU core affinity consistently as shown for being run under Dx9 vs Dx11. Under Dx9 the OS assigns CPU Core0 and Core1 to the game, under Dx11 the OS assigns CPU Core0 and Core3.
GPU usage\load% numbers pretty much follow this same pattern as the CPU when running AHIII under Dx9 vs Dx11.....GPU is loaded much more heavily under Dx9 vs Dx11.
I get the occasional screen freeze when running under Dx11 but no screen freezes when running under Dx9.
:salute
-
My puter engineer son recommended MSI Afterburner for hardware monitoring (CPU and GPU): https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner
Afterburner is a free overclocking tool, but also provides great detailed graphing options on all kinds of CPU & GPU processes, temps, usage, frame rates, etc, and seems like a great tool to identify whether GPU or CPU is more limiting. I just ran it and flew offline, a lot of high speed close to the ground, graphics setting full on, and was getting frame rates dipping into 50's, sometimes a bit lower. When I looked at the graphs I could see that my GPU (3 GB GTX 1060) was flat at 100% when FR's dropped. My i3 6100 processor did not seem to be quite as taxed, although spiking more when FR's dropped......first impressions, and I may do some more testing but the i3 6100/ GTX 1060 seem like a pretty balanced combo with 1060 maxing out first.... so if I decide I want more performance in the future would likely upgrade GPU first.
Heads up on Afterburner, you will need a zip file extraction software, I used 7-zip.
:salute
-
My puter engineer son recommended MSI Afterburner for hardware monitoring (CPU and GPU): https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner
Afterburner is a free overclocking tool, but also provides great detailed graphing options on all kinds of CPU & GPU processes, temps, usage, frame rates, etc, and seems like a great tool to identify whether GPU or CPU is more limiting. I just ran it and flew offline, a lot of high speed close to the ground, graphics setting full on, and was getting frame rates dipping into 50's, sometimes a bit lower. When I looked at the graphs I could see that my GPU (3 GB GTX 1060) was flat at 100% when FR's dropped. My i3 6100 processor did not seem to be quite as taxed, although spiking more when FR's dropped......first impressions, and I may do some more testing but the i3 6100/ GTX 1060 seem like a pretty balanced combo with 1060 maxing out first.... so if I decide I want more performance in the future would likely upgrade GPU first.
Heads up on Afterburner, you will need a zip file extraction software, I used 7-zip.
:salute
Hi DaddyAce,
Thanks for posting this as I use Afterburner exclusively but I had completely spaced out that AB can also graph individual CPU core usage % as well.
Got em enabled now. Gonna make some game runs to check on this..............
:salute
-
You're welcome Pudgie,
I enjoyed building this puter, and am enjoying learning more about it. I am happy if I can share something in this that helps you and others. In that regard I'd like to figure out how to post a plot of my AB output. The AB software doesn't seem to provide for printing....any ideas on how I can grab a shot of my graphs to share?
Thanks!
:salute
-
If you can, screen print it, crop to where you want it, paste it into windows paint then save it as a picture
-
You're welcome Pudgie,
I enjoyed building this puter, and am enjoying learning more about it. I feel the whole process is more worthwhile to me if any part of if it helps you and others. In that regard I'd like to figure out how to post a plot of my AB output. The AB software doesn't seem to provide for printing....any ideas on how I can grab a shot of my graphs to share?
Thanks!
:salute
Hi DaddyAce,
I use the built in Snippet program in Win 7 to "snip" the AB graphs as follows:
Provided are 4 attachments of snippets of the CPU individual core usage along w\ the GPU clocks\usage of my box, 2 as recorded in Resource Monitor and 2 as recorded in AB of playing AHIII Patch 10 under Dx9 vs Dx11.
Again please note how much more the CPU is utilized when running under Dx9 vs Dx11..............
These graphs indicate to me that under Dx11 API the game coding is exerting much less work across the CPU cores so the CPU is encountering a lot more CPU wait time to process game instructions while the game is running than when the very same game coding is running under Dx9 for as you can see the CPU cores are utilized MUCH, MUCH more especially Core1 and Core2 but also Core5 and Core6. Since I'm using an Intel I7 5820K CPU w\ HT disabled the OS has 6 physical cores to spread the game instructions across.
Somehow IMHO there is something within something between the AHIII game client and the OS Dx API's that is instructing the OS to assign the game threads along the CPU core affinities as shown and to cause the CPU usage to drop off relative to the Dx API being used w\ the exact same game client using the exact same settings\setup but seeing issues crop up mostly under Dx11 API vs Dx9 API. The CPU usage dropoff w\ increased CPU core wait time under Dx11 IMM has to be a contributing factor in these issues as I can see a screen pause\freeze occur if a CPU core(s) is slow in starting back up to finish an instruction thread and slow to send the interrupt to let the graphics card know there is work in the cache and to flip finished frames in sequence to display from being idle for too long a time from the OS moving game threads across this many idle cores vs what I see being utilized under Dx9.................
But to date I haven't found anything yet to expose this as the smoking gun for the issues being seen...............
Anyway, hope this helps you out.
:salute
-
Wow that's pretty striking Pudgie! I'm going to have to try that. Apparently my Win 10 has a snippet tool too, will have to try that as well. Tried the shift Prnt scrn, no joy, with a quick try earlier. Thanks for the help guys will try to get something out on my system to see, among other things if I see a diff between DX 9 & 11 on my cpu usage.
-
Hi DaddyAce,
I've been seeing this for quite some time on my box but I was using the Windows Resource Monitor to record the CPU core usage during playing of AHIII then snipping the graphs as soon as I could to save them.
I had completely spaced off that MSI Afterburner was capable of monitoring individual CPU core usage and I can also set the graph width as wide as I want to get a good recording sequence of the graph lines.
I had disabled hyperthreading on my CPU to see if this would help and had found out that the OS had parked all 6 of the logical cores anyway and from reading up on this found that most games won't benefit from hyperthreading anyway if a CPU has more than 2-4 physical cores on die as most games won't need them and I don't do any content creation\video streaming type of activity on my box that could use the extra logical CPU cores as well as hyperthreading was invented to help a single core CPU to process more than 1 thread at a time to increase single core CPU performance. After multi-core CPU's have become the norm for consumers hyperthreading has much less practical use in application and could in some cases cause less CPU performance instead of more.
From doing a LOT of reading\studying on the subject (also conferring w\ others as well) of the way a Windows OS works to assign app\game threads to CPU cores for execution, what you see on the graph of AHIII running under Dx11 is pretty typical across a multi-core CPU when the app\game isn't coded to give CPU core affinity instructions to the OS to assign it's threads to but what is seen on the graph of AHIII running under Dx9 has the appearance of the particular CPU core affinity pattern being designated instead of being randomly assigned.....just what is instructing the OS to designate the particular CPU core usage pattern to AHIII game threads under Dx9 is what I can't isolate so far. I've done MANY game runs using both Dx9 and Dx11 and have only witnessed the OS to deviate from the CPU core usage pattern running AHIII 1 time using Dx11 but never using Dx9. Usually CPU core affinity is written into the app\game software to instruct the OS to use certain CPU cores on a multi-core CPU (the preferred method by MS) to process the app\game threads due to the developer's goals\wishes but this adds more complexity to the app\game code that most developers don't want to get into so this is usually left to the OS to do so the OS will always start w\ Core1 (usually identified by the OS as Core0) and will assign a new thread to the next idle CPU core in sequence if the prior CPU core hasn't completed executing the thread it was assigned at the time. It is this CPU core affinity assignment that I believe is what is giving AHIII the stability when it is ran under Dx9 vs Dx11 as the chosen CPU cores are far more saturated w\ thread execution thus are not near as idle thus do a better job of keeping the GPU saturated w\ rendering work and in synch flipping finished graphics frames to display thus no screen freeze\pause seen.
Taking all this w\ the fact that I've never witnessed a screen freeze\pause on my box running AHIII under Dx9 vs Dx11 is lending a lot of credence to what I've posted above but since I can't verify it to be more than coincidence (or theory if you prefer) the school is still out on this being the culprit that is causing the screen freezes\pauses that I've seen on my box. I seriously do not believe the issue is solely the AHIII game client software in\of itself or the HTC servers themselves...........could just be a function of further developing the game to be so efficient using post-processing graphics rendering that has offloaded the GPU loads under Dx11 to the point that they're becoming more idle due to moving data faster than the CPU can get it to them thus causing what we're seeing.....Dx11 IS much more efficient in post-process graphics rendering due to Shader Model 5.0 vs Dx9 w\ Shader Model 3.0.
I have isolated in times past this screen freezing\pausing to be caused by a more modern and powerful GPU simply outpacing the CPU\mobo mem\subsystem of a particular computer configuration's ability to keep the more modern GPU fed fast enough to keep the GPU busy and stay in synch so it would "freeze" until the rest of the system caught up (the main reason why I went to using Intel's X series HEDT platforms). But if something is causing the CPU to slow down arbitrarily the same screen freezing\pausing can occur if the CPU is slowed down enough so that it can't keep pace w\ the GPU...............and from the graphs it doesn't appear to be that the CPU is overloaded by threads\workload under Dx11......................... .
This is my thoughts on this issue of screen freezing and what got me to start monitoring GPU\CPU usage................
Well I've wasted enough time typing.......time for flying now.
:salute
-
Wow Pudgie, you're really into this, I like it. You're into it much deeper than I am; but I am into trying to understand my system better, and I think this exercise this will help me decide what to upgrade if I want to increase performance after I spring for a nice 1440p monitor, hopefully next week.
I was using AB to record frame rate (mine is currently limited to 60 by my monitor), % GPU usage, % CPU usage (overall) , and % CPU1 usage, and % CPU 2 usage. I've attached 2 snips of the graphs (I like the snipping tool, thank you for that tip). Both are offline runs on the dueling terrain where I was often flying close to the trees, etc. One graph was running the DX 9 version, and the other the DX 11 version. I was not very careful to exactly reproduce my flights, so my summary impression is somewhat anecdotal. Looking them over my initial impression is that DX 11 makes better use of both CPU and GPU resources, as you indicated. I seemed to get more frame rate drops below 60 in DX9. Frame rate drops in both versions corresponded to the GPU being maxed out at 100% .... where FR drops below 60 you see the GPU curve flattened at 100%. My CPU did not seem similarly maxed out and did not reflect the strong pattern seen in the GPU curve. I now think more that my system is GPU limited (GTX 1060) and not CPU limited by the i3 6100. My son just emailed me that it's possible that the CPU may be more limiting when playing online because "....lots of information from the server needs to be processed in serial." I'll have to record more online runs to verify the CPU is not limiting for online usage, although I suspect this is not the case.
Note, on both graphs the top line is Frame rate; I cut the label off on the DX11 graph....
:salute
-
Thanks for posting those graphs DaddyAce!
Looking at both graphs of your I3 6100 2-core CPU's individual core usage I'm seeing the exact same CPU core usage pattern as I'm seeing on mine (I just have 4 more cores to add into the mix than you do) when AHIII is run under Dx9 vs Dx11.
Win 10 is utilizing both CPU cores 1 and 2 when AHIII is run under Dx9 but only CPU core 1 mainly when AHIII is run under Dx11 so your I3 6100 2-Core CPU is being more utilized under Dx9 vs Dx11, just as my I7 5820K 6-core CPU is.
This is pushing more towards something instructing the OS under Dx9 to use CPU Core1 and Core2 running AHIII then offloads the CPU cores when running AHIII under Dx11.....what this is that is doing this is beyond me at this time as the game client is exactly the same coding being used under both OS's (Win 7 SP1 on my box and Win 10 on yours) Dx API's which should be the same in both OS's and the game client isn't coded to request any CPU core affinity that I know of but the OS's appear to be doing this running AHIII under Dx9 vs Dx11.
This is good stuff as I love tinkering w\ computers (does suck though when it comes to playing AHIII using Dx11 on my box having to deal w\ the occasional screen freeze\pause)..........but not tinkering w\ them for a living though.
Curious as to your son's reasoning that the CPU may be limited due to serial processing........?
The only serial paths left that I know of would be the ancient PS\2 ports for input devices (mouse\keyboard) or the DMI\QPI link between the Intel chipset to CPU.......
A 2560 x 1440 res monitor will work your GPU some more vs the current 1920 x 1080 res unit you're currently using but that card you got will do better than you may think it will @ 2560 x 1440 res................
Anyway, thanks again!
:salute
-
Just now looked again at your graphs....................... ..
Boy I messed that up!
Your CPU usage shows to be opposite of what I'm seeing w\ mine (got confused w\ the graph line above CPU Core1 usage which is the total CPU usage graph line on the Dx9 graph you attached).
So your CPU is being utilized more under Dx11 than under Dx9........which is what I would expect to see.
Time for me to go to bed..........................
:old:
:salute
-
Okay Pudgie, I ran some more data, this time online. I organized the graphs a bit better I think. I get 5 CPU reads, a general CPU usage, then usage for CPU 1, 2, 3, & 4. Since I only have 2 cores, perhaps one for each of 4 threads? My take is that for my setup again, I get better performance and with GPU maxed less often, and also less load on the of CPU with DX11. There is also a different pattern in how the threads (assuming that is what is being measured) are used between DX9 & DX11.
-
Hi DaddyAce,
I've looked at your graphs and I'm seeing the same pattern of CPU usage % as I'm seeing w\ mine....................
It looks like when AHIII is being run under Dx11 the CPU cores are being under utilized much more than under Dx9.
This CPU core under utilization is what I'm thinking is contributing to the petite freezes, screen freezes and screen lockups being witnessed when running the game under Dx11 as this is definately indicating that there is a lot more CPU core wait time occurring as even Core1 isn't being fully utilized much less the rest of them. Intel CPU's operate better when the cores that are being used are being utilized as close to 100% load as possible as this keeps the Intel SpeedStep CPU clock\power saving control at bay (stops SpeedStep from underclocking\underpowering CPU cores due to being under utilized which can cause all kinds of mayhem when running games).
To see the CPU core usage dropping off while running AHIII Dx11 vs AHIII Dx9 can't be a good thing IMHO.........quite the opposite. I would rather see the CPU core loads go up even more................
The later Intel CPU's (which most of us are using now....starting at either Intel SB or IB....I definately noted this w\ my X79 series I7 4820K CPU which is IB-E) have this basic control built in at the hardware level now and it can't be disabled. The Enhanced Intel SpeedStep can be disabled in the BIOS\UEFI (I have this disabled on my box due to me discovering that this will prevent the Intel TurboCache from boosting the CPU clock speeds when playing games) but the CPU will still speedstep if the CPU core loads are below a certain threshold due to the hardware level SpeedStep (I have witnessed this going on w\ my I7 5820K CPU thru my Gigabyte SIV while my box was at desktop w\ the Enhanced SpeedStep disabled in the UEFI).
I've never noted any screen freezing\pausing w\ AHIII Dx11....either during Beta or Release....until after the VR coding was added to the game client for Dx11. This is NOT to say that there is an issue w\ the coding itself but I do wonder if the VR coding IS causing a byproduct effect to users running AHIII Dx11 w\o a VR headset attached that is causing the CPU core loads to drop off due to the client not seeing a VR headset.
To date I haven't heard\read posting of any VR user playing AHIII under Dx11 make any complaints of seeing screen freezes\pauses thru their headsets......only from users that aren't using a VR headset. This is what has ran up a red flag for me and got me to start checking into CPU\GPU usage and to discover what you're seeing yourself now.
Yesterday I had a clear graph of my CPU usage dropping on Core1 while playing AHIII under Dx11 and recording a screen freeze once the Core1 usage dropped below 34% w\ the other 5 cores usage below 10% then immediately after this the Core1 usage went back up to over 85% but I didn't snip it..........wished I had done so now.
IMHO it looks like for us users that aren't using a VR headset the only choice for us at this time is to use the Dx9 version of AHIII to get away from these petite freezes, screen freezes\pauses or lockups as it is clearly showing that under Dx9 the game client will load the CPU cores much more heavily which is IMHO a contributor to the game client running and not exhibiting these petite freezes, screen freezes\pauses and lockups.
I have pretty much exhausted any\every thing else on my box at my end and have eliminated all else as a contributor..........except the CPU core usage patterns exposed when running the game client under Dx9 vs Dx11.
I even went into my box's UEFI and reset the CPU Upgrade (Gigabyte's UEFI quick CPU OC) from I7 5820K 4.0 (sets the Intel Turbo Cache boost limit to 4.0 Ghz) to Auto (sets this back to default @ 3.5 Ghz) then ran AHIII again under both Dx9 and Dx11 and saw no change in CPU core usage patterns.
:salute
-
pudge the idea of under used cpu cores as issue does not jive.
ah3 was redone to use more gpu and less cpu..................to say the cpu is not maxed is to say its handling the load, yes..................
AH3 added DX11 years after the fact, dX9 is native so I think here is the rub. Why did not HT use PhysX, to much difference in coding .............
I have been testing slowly and well the micro freezes, stutters, CTD's............... I just get micro stutters, very limited, so I assume the all my new hardware is handling it all fine.
The internet will cause stuttering, pc not set up right to game will cause stutters..................... ...
this DX11 issue should be broken down to
-new machine, latest hardware
-old, quality machine with new VID CARD added
-middle of the road pc...
-laptop
-NVidia based
-AMD based
:salute
-
<snip>
AH3 added DX11 years after the fact, dX9 is native so I think here is the rub. Why did not HT use PhysX, to much difference in coding .............<snip>
We are not big about supporting proprietary API's. Never have been.
-
I just had a thought and so I set up and ran a test on my box to kinda simulate the Internet being in use then having MSI Afterburner open to record the CPU core usage while Firefox is running and also having Gigabyte's SIV open and running in the background to monitor the CPU core speed as well.
Then after this ran for a while I then took my mouse pointer and started moving it across the MSI Afterburner graph to move the white status line that runs vertically over the entire graph to monitor CPU core usage changes.
Here is a snippet of the results for your viewing provided below.
(Note: I do wish I knew the in's\out's of making a YouTube movie of this as it would have backed up what I'm about to post)
You can clearly see that when I started moving my mouse pointer in the fashion described above the CPU core usage moved to approximate the percentage of CPU core usage as recorded\shown in earlier posting w\ AHIII Dx11 running, not necessarily using the same CPU core affinity (the OS made these CPU core affinity choices to assign the threads to). But what you don't see in this snip that I witnessed is the Gigabyte SIV showing the CPU core speeds fluctuating from as low as 1200 MHz all the way up to the Turbo Boost speeds of 4003 MHz while I was moving the mouse pointer. Note this is operating w\ Intel Enhanced SpeedStep disabled in my box's UEFI (which does NOT disable the hardware level SpeedStep now built into all Intel consumer CPU's). Note also during this test the vid card is hardly being used (mostly due to Aero Glass which will use some 3D rendering but 2D rendering is being used the most) but the GPU is clocking at 300 MHz (lowest speed it will run) w\ mem clocked at 500 MHz (this is on this graph but can't all be seen on screen thru snip).
So I DO see this as a very potential issue when running AHIII Dx11 on my box showing this low of CPU utilization and seeing screen freeze\pause that in contrast I do NOT see happening running AHIII Dx9 on my box which is shown to more heavily load the CPU core utilization and NOT see ANY screen freeze\pause using the exact same game client software using the exact same client settings using the exact same driver settings on the exact same computer configuration using the exact same Internet routing system w\ the same variables upping\playing from the exact same area of the game map across both Dx API's.....all this should be far more of a usage variance issue as far as the GPU usage\utilization is concerned but IMHO NOT the CPU usage\utilization side of this.....shouldn't be this large of a variance in CPU usage between 2 MS Dx API's being used by the exact same OS w\ the exact same game client software running on it.
I'm open to any understanding of how MS Directx API's affect the CPU usage side of a game to this extent when being run that I don't already know about from the reading that I have already done to help me to see\understand the wide CPU usage variance that I'm seeing currently between a single game client being used under 2 different Dx API's that I've witnessed issues from 1 but not the other...........
As far as PLAYING the game goes, this is an easy choice to make....just stop using the Dx11 version and go w\ the Dx9 version of AHIII if a player doesn't have\is using a VR headset (also kinda what HTC has alluded to do in a roundabout way for the time being while they're looking into this issue). My box runs AHIII Dx9 damn well as it ALWAYS has, but this doesn't address the issue at hand as the game is currently coded as for optimum GPU game performance is concerned all testing on my end has shown that the AHIII Dx11 version IS the 1 to be using....and now we're at the crux of this issue, at least for me but I discern that I'm not the only 1 here......including the nice folks at HTC as well.
:salute
-
I have disabled speedstep, turboboost, I have cpu at 4ghz and it's locked in.
I would disable all the crap, then test.
You can also disable core parking in w7, do this as well!
-
allowing the pc to make choices and operate on its own will inevitably bite you.
if its green its disabled
if its autofyed its disabled
any optimization is scewed for performance
all this new hardware is changing things as well, GTX 1000 series cards are incredible really.
-
I have disabled speedstep, turboboost, I have cpu at 4ghz and it's locked in.
I would disable all the crap, then test.
You can also disable core parking in w7, do this as well!
I have already disabled the Enhanced Intel SpeedStep in the UEFI....been doing this since my X79 box when I discovered that it defeated Intel TurboBoost. I also have disabled Hyperthreading in the UEFI so this took care of Windows parking the logical CPU cores....Windows only sees the 6 physical CPU cores which Windows will not park so my CPU cores are running 1 thread at a time per CPU core now instead of trying to execute 2 threads per CPU core. Made these changes after doing some reading up on how Windows processes threads across CPU cores and on how Hyperthreading actually works.....realized that w\ a mulit-core CPU being used w\ a consumer level usage load that hyperthreading is pretty much useless if a CPU has a minimum of 2 physical cores but definately when a CPU has 4 or more physical cores on die.....unless a consumer is doing work that can actually saturate all the physical CPU cores, but at a hexacore\octacore or more level unless you're running server related types of usage I just can't see a need for hyperthreading at all. This also simplifies thread assignment\management for Windows which could net some slight CPU efficiency\performance gains as well under a consumer usage load w\ Hyperthreading disabled on a multi-core CPU.
Now I haven't disabled Intel TurboBoost as I kinda liked the advent of free CPU OC'ing since my understanding of how this works (doesn't suppose to kick in until after the CPU is running at the base clock speeds as set in the UEFI (w\ my I7 5820K this is 3.3 GHz) then if the CPU operating power\temp levels are sufficiently low enough at base clock speeds then the CPU will be OC'd to the turbo boost clock speeds as set in the UEFI (default is 3.5 GHz)...IOW's free OC'ing w\o the hassle of actually setting this up). I have set the CPU Upgrade setting in my Gigabyte UEFI (which are presets that set the upper TB clock limits) to I7 5820K 4.0 GHz and have checked this to actually work as advertised....once you get the Enhanced Intel SpeedStep out of the way (also have set up in Windows Power Management to High Performance plan which should shut down any Windows controlled power management schemes....which Enhanced Intel SpeedStep was 1 of them).
Might look into trying my box w\ TB disabled to see if there's a difference.
The only CPU power\clock control left that can't be disabled on Intel CPU's is the hardware level 1st gen Intel SpeedStep which is looking at CPU core load to determine when to reduce power and clock speeds w\ the intent of determining a desktop type CPU load usage vs heavy app usage (such as a game being run) to save power at very low CPU load usage. This is coded in at the actual CPU die level on chip now.....used to be accessible thru the BIOS back in the day but since the Pentium days this has been installed at the chip level.
This is why it's important for a game client software to load an Intel CPU (or an AMD CPU as they use the PowerNow! equivalent of Intel's SpeedStep) above a certain load threshold and maintain the CPU usage above it to prevent the CPU from trying to go into speed stepping due to the CPU load falling below the set load threshold level to trigger this.
This is what I'm trying to prove is what is triggering the screen pauses\freezes and whatnot that is going on w\ running AHIII Dx11. If I can get the CPU core load usage to climb high enough to stay above the 50% usage mark across at least 2 CPU cores as I'm seeing being done under AHIII Dx9 I believe this stuff will cease to occur. From all the data that I've gathered and the items that I've addressed\witnessed on my end this is the only logical conclusion that I can come to to explain what is causing these issues under the Dx11 version but not under the Dx9 version.
So far, everything I've tried\done I can't get the CPU core usage when running AHIII Dx11 on my box to stay up above the 40% level across any CPU core and every screen pause I've seen since I've set up MSI AB to record the individual CPU core usage on my CPU has shown the CPU core usage on any CPU core to be below 35% or lower at the time when they do occur. I believe that the CPU is trying to speed step the cores at this low of CPU load level causing the issues to appear but I can't prove any of this unless I can get the CPU core usage up consistently higher then monitor the game from there.
I believe all the other items, though important to find, were only really symptoms that the real cause amplified.......and why it's so hard to isolate.
I have learned thru my soon to be 34-yr career in the petroleum industry to not assume if possible but to test, document and verify even if you are sure of a source of an issue and to not discount any potential cause until it is proven w\ verifiable documentation to be\not be the cause, no matter how silly or mundane it may sound to others.
So this concept is what I'm bringing to the table to work this issue to try to be of help to HTC w\ this game because it's 1 of my favorite pastimes and I can't stand it when something isn't working as it should so I always try to eliminate my side of this 1st before going any further and at this time I've pretty much eliminated everything on my side that I'm aware of.....just got done to finally reroute a phone line yesterday to get the wife's all-in-one printer's fax modem off our dedicated ADSL line (found out why the filter was missing earlier after finding this from noticing my new Netgear Nighthawk modem\router was dropping out approx every 2-3 days....she had did it earlier due to a fax not going thru and didn't tell me about it.....now all will go thru the Centurylink installed industrial-grade ADSL filter they installed in the phone service box which gives me a fully dedicated, unhindered ADSL line ALL THE TIME now to the modem\router w\o needing to install any of the cheap ADSL line filters anymore......beautiful!).
:salute
-
I have disabled speedstep, turboboost, I have cpu at 4ghz and it's locked in.
I would disable all the crap, then test.
You can also disable core parking in w7, do this as well!
Hi MADe,
I got another hunch this morning and went into the UEFI in my box and looked around under the MIT then under Advanced CPU Core Settings....then I kept tabbing the selections down and I found a setting that I thought wasn't there......called CPU EIST Function (which is where this CPU power\frequency saving control can be enabled, disabled or allow the UEFI to determine it's usage at the hardware level).
So I quickly disabled this, saved and rebooted then checked the CPU thru Gigabyte SIV.......voila! My I7 5820K CPU is now locked into the Intel TurboBoost settings showing CPU clocks staying mostly at the 4003 MHz clocks but occasionally will dip to 3942 MHz so I believe she won't clock down lower than the base clock speed of 3300 MHZ going forward.
Gonna run some tests w\ AHIII Dx11 now.......................... .
FYI.......................... ........
:salute
-
CIEST, except for thermal protections I disable all. I believe here is where the cpu throttling is controlled. Basically any feature that was added for laptops batt longevity is useless in a desktop machine.
msconfig>boot>advanced, here you will find an option to tell machine to use all cpu cores for boot process. Now I believe this also reports to OS about # of cores and can screw with things like cpu-z and OS resource monitor...................... ......in case you were unaware :salute
I have had HT disabled because of my cpu OC. I had cores parked, so I disabled core parking on my W7 i7 machine. The new machine reports cores differently, You never see HT cores in resource monitor altho they are enabled. Right now I use a BCLK of 101 and a multiplier of 40. CPU does not vary except for basic fluctuations. Theres no throttling and all cores get same all time as far as freq and voltage, even at idle.
I also played with my displays settings, set for game-original, and switch to aspect scaling with gpu, from no scaling. Game did load slightly different......
I decided to test my new rig as well with DSR, gonna up my res and crank it up with v sync disabled. I have already set it up just have not got into online arena yet, offline it looks phenominal with steady frame rate at 120.