modern games using more cores?

jbh110tdi · 19 Nov 2015 at 09:52

I was looking at the specs for a few games recently and I see there recommendations for high settings are looking for i7 or fx9590 CPU's

do you think the newer games are starting to take advantage of more cores?
will we all be forced into going for i7's or equivalent for the ultimate gaming experience?

dirtybeatfreak · 19 Nov 2015 at 10:17

Not quite happening yet but I can see it happening in the future. Especially with things like DX12 which are (I think) supposed to make use of the extra cores.

FloppyPoppy · 19 Nov 2015 at 10:23

dirtybeatfreak said:
Not quite happening yet but I can see it happening in the future. Especially with things like DX12 which are (I think) supposed to make use of the extra cores.

Dx12 is supposed to balance the load between cpu and gpu

Essentially what you will see happening in most cases is your GPU usage drop to around 75-80% usage opposed to pinned at 99% and and your CPU will go from pinning 2 cores at whatever % they are pinned at and should even out over all the cores using more like 60% power from all of them. Opposed to AROUND the 80% of 2 cores that most games use today.

This is because the CPU and GPU can basically communicate better together

And this is where the performance gains come from.

UTmaniac · 19 Nov 2015 at 10:23

Project CARS will make use of 6 cores or more, getting the most benefit of the -dx11mt (multi-thread rendering) -pthreads 4 (extra physics threads above the standard 2) launch commands.

FloppyPoppy · 19 Nov 2015 at 10:32

UTmaniac said:
Project CARS will make use of 6 cores or more, getting the most benefit of the -dx11mt (multi-thread rendering) -pthreads 4 (extra physics threads above the standard 2) launch commands.

Yeah

Some developers are great and actually aim to utilize all the pc hardware. It's a shame they are so few. Most of them just don't bother with the pc optimization as it's just so much extra work over say a console.

mid_gen · 19 Nov 2015 at 10:41

It's a big leap from console unified memory architecture to the PC discrete system and GPU memory, makes things a lot more complicated.

But that said, as current-gen console and PC engines mature designed from the ground up for multi-core this is going to mean more use of extra cores. It's a mega job making multi-threaded engines work well though.

Nate75 · 19 Nov 2015 at 11:37

Some good info here. Good article actually...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-why-directx-12-is-a-gamechanger

snowdog · 19 Nov 2015 at 11:39

Some games already use all my cores, I have HT diabled so 4 threads, but in cities Skylines at double speed I get 100% cpu use ( 70-80% at single speed @ 150k ppl and loads of mods). GTA5 also seems to be aroun 80% cpu use.

This on a 4.5 ghz i7.

Seanspeed · 19 Nov 2015 at 11:44

dirtybeatfreak said:
Not quite happening yet but I can see it happening in the future. Especially with things like DX12 which are (I think) supposed to make use of the extra cores.

It's absolutely happening already.

I regularly see games using a very respectable spread of tasks/usage across multiple cores and threads nowadays, whereas before(particularly last generation), it was more usual to see bottlenecks occur after one core got maxed out and the rest were ranging from 20-50% usage.

DX12 will make even better use of extra cores/threads if a dev puts the work in for it, but it wont be a huge leap over games that have already had a ton of effort in maximizing the CPU workloads like we've seen with GTA V and Fallout 4 and whatnot.

I'm not sure we'll be *forced* into using i7's and whatnot, but I think those using them will probably start seeing more noticeable improvements over i5 users. And likewise, i5 users seeing more improvement over i3 users.

snowdog said:
Some games already use all my cores, I have HT diabled so 4 threads, but in cities Skylines at double speed I get 100% cpu use ( 70-80% at single speed @ 150k ppl and loads of mods). GTA5 also seems to be aroun 80% cpu use.

This on a 4.5 ghz i7.

Why would you turn off hyperthreading?

snowdog · 19 Nov 2015 at 11:52

Seanspeed said:
Why would you turn off hyperthreading?

Because 100-200 mhz extra is better than HT, and HT causes my temps to rise by nearly 5C, and I'm cooling limited on my cpu OC wise.

coutinho · 19 Nov 2015 at 11:58

Pretty sure my i52500 is holding back my amd290, just finished crysis 3 and it ran awful dropping frame rate to 30 and below all the time, and fallout 4 seems to stutter quite a lot also.

Seanspeed · 19 Nov 2015 at 12:06

snowdog said:
Because 100-200 mhz extra is better than HT, and HT causes my temps to rise by nearly 5C, and I'm cooling limited on my cpu OC wise.

Ah ok, if you're pushing your OC already, that's understandable.

Seanspeed · 19 Nov 2015 at 12:13

coutinho said:
Pretty sure my i52500 is holding back my amd290, just finished crysis 3 and it ran awful dropping frame rate to 30 and below all the time, and fallout 4 seems to stutter quite a lot also.

2500 or 2500k?

If it's even moderately overclocked(4.0Ghz+), I highly doubt it's the cause of your issues(would still be questionable even if not). With Crysis 3, if you have vsync on and you're dipping under 60 to any significant degree, it may well drop all the way to 30fps, as that's what vsync does. Turn down some settings to stop those drops. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to do 1080p/60fps with an R9 290.

With Fallout 4, I'd also take a look at vsync and make sure it's working correctly. Perhaps try capping through Rivatuner, too. Stuttering can be caused by several factors.

coutinho · 19 Nov 2015 at 12:21

2500, yeah vsync is on or I get horrid tearing everywhere , its wierd it runs smooth 60 fps then just stutters right down all time in the open combat parts.
I have the fan profile set to go up to 100 percent for the gpu , not bothered about the noise even when it sounds like a jet engine.