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Multi-thread aware apps/games

Mercutio

Mercutio

Mercutio

Soldato
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On the back of: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17760077

What is there out there that is multi-thread aware? Mainstream stuff that a lot of us would use (this isnt meant as a negative post, more for information). So far I know of:

Games:
Supreme Commander
GRAW
Bioshock
Crysis
Source engine based games (TBA)

Apps:
The obvious big things like cad etc.


What else is there?
Personally id be interested in multi-thread aware: Compression tools, dvd encoders. What would others like to see as multi-thread? Ill try and keep this top post edited and updated as we go :)
 
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Bioshock
Crysis
Source engine based games (TBA)

Pretty much all the upcoming releases will be multithreaded in the near future imo. Hopefully ETQW will get a patch for multi cores too.
 
What I know of off the top of my head:

just about all adobe software iirc

autodesk programs (cad etc)

discreet software (now part of autodesk but I still seperate them) - combustion/3ds max etc

poser 7, solidworks, maya and as said just about any 3d program worth its salt.

quake engined games, next unreal tournament.

I think nero is.

winzip/winrar/7 zip/zip genius

quicktime, wmp, itunes, div-x, purevideo, cyberdvd
 
how many threads is required to be considered multi-thread?

since, by that picture, Sidebar and most of Windows Vista's background applications are all multi-threaded
aac6ffb3.jpg
 
Is Colin McRae DiRT a multi-threaded game? It's a direct console port which was designed to run on multi-core XBOX 360s and PS3s so common sense would dictate that the more cores you have the better this will run?

Currently it runs like a dog on my C2D E6600 @ 3.0GHz with an X1950XTX crossfire setup. At high resolutions it's so bad it's simply unplayable. Do you think a quad core CPU would make it run any better?
 
Some apps are multithreaded, but some of those threads are mostly always sleeping, waiting for an event (e.g. data on a socket). This type of app gains a very marginal benefit from more cores.

The Windows service processes act as hosts for various services, so you get lots of threads in those.
 
The only game i've actually seen it from is Supreme Commander, every other game peaks at 50% usage, 100% at one core, that includes stuff like CoD2 which people claim is multicore.
 
Entirely depends on the design of the game. You can have multiple threads, for dealing with say, network, but a thread like that is I/O bound, so doesn't use much CPU time.

If you can find a good way to split up something like AI calculations (which are CPU intensive) into multiple threads, then you start to see big gains for many (like 4+) cores.

BTW, good multithreaded programming (especially debugging) is difficult. Parallelizing things in an efficient and correct way is a lot of work.
 
Talrinys said:
The only game i've actually seen it from is Supreme Commander, every other game peaks at 50% usage, 100% at one core, that includes stuff like CoD2 which people claim is multicore.
Click to expand...

Quake 4, i have the cpu monitored on my z-10 speakers, and q4 definately uses 2 cores (theres also an option in the game to use dual core...)
 
Latest Pov-Ray Beta....four cores all at 100% when rendering !!


How about software that does't use multi cores ???, or uses them poorly ?. I'll start.....

Stalker - one core 100%, the other three almost zero !

Regards
 
Sad thing is though that many of those games shouldn't actually need such power to run at those levels - most of the graphical work is GPU anyway.

If they were coded a bit more efficiently in the first place then we wouldn't be looking at such high powered machines.

The latest and upcoming FPS for example - what actual difference in terms of additional gameplay do they bring over the Quakes, Dooms and Half Lifes of previous years. Yep, better graphics and effect undoubtedly but, as said, that's largely the GPUs realm. AI is marginally better, other than that, what is there in the modern FPS that requires dual and quad cores at all...

Inefficient coding and bad console ports - just throw more power at it.
 
I hope you guys find this little list useful, for multi-threaded software.

Real-World Applications

3D Studio MAX using Mental Ray Renderer (>99 % of 4 cores)
Adobe Premiere Elements v3.0.2 (52-85 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
AutoGK v2.40 (30-53 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
Cinema 4d Rendering (>99 % of 4 cores)
Dr. DivX v2.0.0 (47-65 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
DVDShrink v3.2 (~90 % of 4 cores)
Lightwave 3D (>99 % of 4 cores)
Nero Suite 7.x (>90 % of 4 cores when encoding)
Noise Ninja v2.13 (~80 % of 4 cores when doing the noise reduction on an image)
Sony Vegas 7.0e (83-100 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
TMPG XPress v4.2.3.193 (65-100 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
Winrar v3.70 (~85-90 % of 4 cores on benchmark; ~75% in practice)
x264 v0.55.663 (>99 % of 4 cores when doing the 2nd pass of a 2 pass encode)

Benchmark/Distributed Computing Applications

Folding@home SMP client (>99 % of 4 cores)
Muon1 DPAD (~85 % of 4 cores)
OCCT (>99 % of 4 cores)
Prime95 v25.3 (>99 % of 4 cores)
wprime v1.50 (>99 % of 4 cores)
Xvid 1.1.3
wPrime
PCMark05 (last test)
3dMark06
EVEREST (benchmarks)
SANDRA (benchmarks)

Software designed for 4 or more cores

Adobe AfterEffects 7/8
Adobe Premiere Pro 2/3.0
Adobe Encore DVD 2.+
Maxon Cinema 4D v10
Pinnacle Studio dv 10
Sony Vegas 7.0
Steinberg- Yamaha Cubase v4.5
THQ/Gas Powered Games Supreme Commander
Remedy Alan Wake
Valve Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Epic Unreal Engine 3
Ubisoft Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Autodesk 3DSMAX 8 and 3DSMAX 9
Adobe Photoshop CS2
Quicktime Pro 7.1
XMPEG with DIVX 6.2
Pov Ray 3.7 Beta
 
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joeconway said:
i had it in my head that that was the "NEEDS quad core" game

not sure why though the trailers dont look that amazing
Click to expand...
There is a video presentation on youtube which details this. The physics in Alan Wake are complex and multiple cores are needed to render the environment in real-time. Perhaps this is an indication that multiple core processors will eliminate the need for physics acceleration cards which never really found a market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLEBOn9K5Nk
 
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