Only one core in use.

[hypochondriac]

I have a Q6600, which is quad core. But when I'm playing Sim City 4, sometimes it decides to randomly exit. Which is annoying when you havent saved in a while and the fact there's no auto save. But when it exits, my sidebar's tracking of core usage tells me all the cores were idle apart from one prior to the crash. Not very good multitasking if you tell me.
Is it actually my processor causing this? And why is my processor doing this?

 

[Robzere31]

Most games arn't programmed to use more than one core.

 

[hypochondriac]

Oh

Would one core of a multicore processor be less able than a single cored processor?

 

[foxbat]

Oh

Would one core of a multicore processor be less able than a single cored processor?

Not likely. With one core being fully utilised by the game that leaves three others to take care of the other processes running in the background on your machine. Ideally you'd want that the other way around but it's better than having a single core getting interrupted to do other stuff and possibly causing stuttering in the game.

 

[Corasik]

Oh

Would one core of a multicore processor be less able than a single cored processor?

Depends on the processor.

One core of a Q6600 @ 2.4ghz is exactly the same as one core of an E6600 @ 2.4ghz.

Compared to an Intel P4, a single core of a [email protected] is considerab y faster than a P4 running at 3.2Ghz, and in most cases would outperform a 3.7Ghz P4! (P4's were slow).

The Quad Extreme's actually have higher stock speed than the fastest dual, but when it comes to overclocking, the duals generally go faster than quads.

It's nothing to really be worried about, a Q6600 will have great performance on old single threaded applications, and as more new programs make use of the cores, it will only get better, not to mention as foxbat said, the other processor cores are available for windows to assign to tasks such as anti virus, or anything else you have running in the background.

 

[hypochondriac]

Hmm seen as the processor would probably easily run SC4, then why does it keep crashing? I won't even be doing any taxing tasks then it just exits back to the desktop without warning?
I think the graphics are mobo integrated so it could be that? although SC4 isnt exactly a graphics heavy game :/

 

[Corasik]

Ahh, well if I remember right, SimCity4 hates being switched between cores. Pretty sure it used to do exactly the same trick on my dual core.

I believe if you force it to stay on 1 core (Set affinity) then it will stop crashing. Windows can change an application between cores whenever it fancies it. Something about SC4 dislikes that, and anytime the games running on a different core to the one it started with it can crash.

Another trick that can help is to add /usepmtimer to boot.ini. This forces windows to sync the cores better, and can help older software.

 

[Corasik]

Gonna install SC4 and have a play, bet it crashes on my system to, but I'll have someone to blame for the hours spend building a good city!

 

[hypochondriac]

How do you alter the affinity?

 

[Vigoro]

open up task manager and go to processes, then right click on the process of the application, the select "Set Affinity"

 

[GarethDW]

Yep, what Vigoro said ^

Alternatively, for a more permanent solution, you might want to consider using ImageCFG

http://www.robpol86.com/pages/imagecfg.php

 

[hypochondriac]

cheers it worked