Will BoS and RoF run better on Hexacore processor?

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

Hi guys.

 

I currently run RoF on I7 950 processor at stock speed of 3.00 Mhz plus Gtx 670 video card ( just got a second one for SLi setup), installed on SSD , 2560*1440 resolution. It runs smooth enough but i get noticable slowdowns when playing on Flying Circus server. My question is would RoF and BoS utilize all six cores of hexacore processor , and would there be any improvement over a quadcore processor. I might be able to buy I7 970 processor but would like to know if there is any point in the first place or is it a waste of resources.

 

Thanks.

 

DonKojote

 

P.S. Hi to all 'usual suspects' from Fast Food and Flying Circus servers.

[ImPeRaToR]

No it won't, go for a high-clock quad-core

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

Thanks Imperator.

 

I guess I will have to move to haswell by the time BoS comes out.

[ImPeRaToR]

I am not sure the upgrade to a haswell will be worth it for you, I only upgraded myself because many of my components were 5 years and older and I was still on a Core 2 Quad.

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

Would overclocking help?

[Matt]

Overclocking should improve your overall performance, but not sure if it would fix those slowdowns you're experiencing.

 

I doubt that the 670 was fully maxed out in RoF, so i don't think the second 670 will improve your performance, as long as the CPU is the bottleneck.

[AndyHill]

RoF actually seems to scale pretty well with multiple cores, at least if you have a lot of units in the mission. Usually a fast CPU with fewer cores is the best bet, though, but it would be interesting to see real comparisons.

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

Thanks for reply , to be honest I am not sure what to do to get stable framerates. Is it because there is too many players on a small map on Flying Circus , or could it be also server related?

Edited September 4, 2013 by Don_Kojote

[FuriousMeow]

I went from an i7 870 @ 4.0GHz to a i7 4770k @ 4.4GHz (HT disabled on both) and had a very noticeable improvement with QMB and every flight set to max. It also increased baseline performance significantly (just myself flying around on the map). I went from a GTX580 to a GTX770 as well, but the CPU had more to do with the improvement with more planes in the air.

 

It depends if the cost is worth it to you, but the Haswell also does more Instructions Per Clock than 1st gen i7s. I also didn't really experience slow downs with the i7 870 online, so it could be another issue. I upgraded because I got a really good deal on the 4770k, and the CPU was 4 years old.

Edited September 6, 2013 by FuriousMeow

[Dakpilot]

Buy yourself a closed loop watercooler (H100i or similar) and overclock that 950 as much as you can for good stability, you will get the biggest FPS per buck improvement, if it is still not enough you can use the cooler on a newer generation chip for similar overclock, and no money wasted 

Older 3570k i5 or i7 (i7 has pretty much no benefit in gaming) have almost exactly the same (sometimes higher overclock) performance as Haswell chips, you can get that generation of MB/CPU for reasonable prices so upgrade is not so expensive, with modern motherboards a 4.5ghz overclock is a simple button press or move a slider, no expert knowledge needed!

Would have thought GTX670 SLi enough to not be bottleneck on FPS slowdowns even at that resolution, but I have no experience on that.

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

Thanks for advise guys, I have Corsair watercooling at the moment but never tried to overclock yet. Well I tried once , I ended up with two cores not showing in Windows . I must try overclocking with help of someone who knows how to do it properly.

 

Just to recap Dakpilot , there is no need to get i7 if I use my PC for gaming only? i5 will be enough?

[FuriousMeow]

Yes, i5 is enough. Although the i7 does have a larger L2 cache which can help when there is a lot of data being processed but I haven't seen any studies to indicate it's a huge benefit.

 

If you overclock, disabling HyperThreading will allow a higher clock with less heat than if you had HT enabled.

Edited September 6, 2013 by FuriousMeow

[Matt]

Just to recap Dakpilot , there is no need to get i7 if I use my PC for gaming only? i5 will be enough?

The i7 is obviously faster, but compared to the higher price, the performance gain in RoF/BoS will not be worth it.

 

Of course, if money is no issue, there's no reason to not buy an i7, but I would definitely save the money and buy an i5 instead.

 

With a i5 4670k and your two 670's, you shouldn't need to worry about anything.

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

Thanks for replies guys. Much appreciated.

[skline00]

Doing some final tweeks to this rig below!

[SeaW0lf]

Hi guys.

 

I currently run RoF on I7 950 processor at stock speed of 3.00 Mhz plus Gtx 670 video card ( just got a second one for SLi setup), installed on SSD , 2560*1440 resolution. It runs smooth enough but i get noticable slowdowns when playing on Flying Circus server. My question is would RoF and BoS utilize all six cores of hexacore processor , and would there be any improvement over a quadcore processor. I might be able to buy I7 970 processor but would like to know if there is any point in the first place or is it a waste of resources.

 

Thanks.

 

DonKojote

 

P.S. Hi to all 'usual suspects' from Fast Food and Flying Circus servers.

 

 

The gain you are going to have from a  I7 950 to a i5-4670K is above 50% in single thread. This is massive for games, especially the ones with bad optimization for multicores. ROF uses only two cores and every bit of improvement that you gain in single thread is welcomed. BoS might be optimized for 4 cores, but if the engine is the same of ROF it might not. I don't know much about game engines.

 

If you can, the upgrade to a Haswell will be a big step. 50% nowadays is like hitting the jackpot. Like people said, the i7-4770K has better cache and is a bit faster in single thread, but you can always overclock the i5.

 

On a side note, my i7-3770K is bottlenecking my GTX 770 with everything maxed out and SS at ROF. The card is being used only 60%, but if I overclock the i7-3770K to 4.4Ghz the TrackIR stuttering gets much less frequent at deck level. Again, ROF is for a dual core, so, every bit of improvement in single thread performance is like water in the desert.

 

If you could, I would upgrade. But you can wait a bit to see how Broadwell will fare. If it gains more than 10% over Haswell you could also wait until March, April for its launch. But I would only buy the unlocked CPU series (K series), because these games gains a lot with overclock.

[FuriousMeow]

 

The gain you are going to have from a  I7 950 to a i5-4670K is above 50% in single thread. This is massive for games, especially the ones with bad optimization for multicores. ROF uses only two cores and every bit of improvement that you gain in single thread is welcomed. BoS might be optimized for 4 cores, but if the engine is the same of ROF it might not. I don't know much about game engines.

 

 

RoF uses 4 cores, and has for a while. When Windows 7 came out, duo cores suffered with stuttering until a fix was released while quad cores weren't seeing any issues.

 

Albert: Yes, it was news. Windows 7 has its own mechanisms for working with data streams for multi-core processors. At the same time the operating system and some applications reserved power of multiple threads. Since ROF is also a multi-threaded application, there is a conflict in which the operating system does not produce the necessary power to annex settlements. The result is a slowdown, jumps and other “fun killers”. In this case, we are confident that ROF had no effect on the ability of the operating system, even if it got more computing power. I do still think it’s just a defect, an unfortunate simplification of this system from Microsoft engineers. We have written several letters with suggestions and a description of the problem. Our findings are supported by the specialists at Intel, they fully agree with us. But Microsoft is silent. So all we can say is — use quad- or hex-core processors with Windows 7 or Windows Vista operating systems. ROF will make use of their free data-flow and get good performance with high image quality. If your budget doesn’t permit new hardware, use Windows XP with dual-core processors. Windows XP does not interfere in the management of data flows. As you can see, a good knowledge of mathematics does not help us solve the problem. But we are looking for additional opportunities. And we do understand that players want to play but don’t have the opportunity to buy a new processor.

 

 

http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_455a.html

Edited November 6, 2013 by FuriousMeow

[SeaW0lf]

RoF uses 4 cores, and has for a while. When Windows 7 came out, duo cores suffered with stuttering until a fix was released while quad cores weren't seeing any issues.

 

 

http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_455a.html

 

 

According to two guys from Nvidia forum who installed the game to test it, there is no difference in frames from 2 to 4 cores and only a 10% penalty from 2 to 1 core; this with an i7 overclocked and running with a Titan. Which means it is not even fully optimized for a dual core. The other guy was seeing one core at 85%, another at 35%, other at 25% and the rest at idle, which is also a sign that a dual core is what it takes.

 

And that is consistent with what I am experiencing, since an overclock to my i7-3770K makes a big improvement in the TrackIR stuttering. People at ROF forum said the same thing.

[SeaW0lf]

http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_455a.html

 

He vaguely speaks about the use of multicores. It could mean anything. 

[FuriousMeow]

 

According to two guys from Nvidia forum who installed the game to test it, there is no difference in frames from 2 to 4 cores and only a 10% penalty from 2 to 1 core; this with an i7 overclocked and running with a Titan. Which means it is not even fully optimized for a dual core. The other guy was seeing one core at 85%, another at 35%, other at 25% and the rest at idle, which is also a sign that a dual core is what it takes.

 

And that is consistent with what I am experiencing, since an overclock to my i7-3770K makes a big improvement in the TrackIR stuttering. People at ROF forum said the same thing.

 

 

That means nothing. They did a test for FPS, but did they load the sky full of planes? It is fully optimized for multi-core, which means anything more than 1 core.

 

I went from a duo to a quad, and the ability to handle huge engagements was a two fold increase.

 

All of my cores share the same amount of load, so really the tests were bogus and they wouldn't recommend a quad core as the recommended processor on their website for RoF if a duo was the best.

 

Loading up on the backend where all computations are on the CPU, and not the GPU, are where the best tests are at - and you'll find a duo core will not be able to keep up with a quad core when handling large engagements.

Edited November 7, 2013 by FuriousMeow

[FuriousMeow]

Someone forgot to tell my quad core to only use two of it's cores with RoF.

[SeaW0lf]

I am not going to discuss it, since it has been mentioned at ROF forum and everyone knows it. The Windows task manager is just what it is; Microsoft stuff.

[FuriousMeow]

Okay. So you're going to continue spreading misinformation then? Just because some people got together and did some erroneous tests, doesn't invalidate the fact that from the developer's mouths the quad cores are better for RoF.

 

Would CoreTemp be acceptable? It'll show the same as the "Microsoft stuff."

Edited November 7, 2013 by FuriousMeow

[FuriousMeow]

That's with 30 planes in the air, all ground objects, on western front map.

[Dakpilot]

"The game requires two cores, the operating system requires a single core, so we recommend 4-core cpu."

 

From questions to developers

 

and run your TiR on the remaining unused core 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

Edited November 7, 2013 by Dakpilot

[Zmaj76]

No it won't, go for a high-clock quad-core

I run ROF and BOS perfectly in MP, on 1920x1200. ROF on max and CLOD on med to high.

i7920 Oc 3.5Ghz

GTX 660Ti 2GB on stock

8GB DDR3 app at 1300

Edited November 7, 2013 by Tvrdi

[SeaW0lf]

"The game requires two cores, the operating system requires a single core, so we recommend 4-core cpu."

 

From questions to developers

 

and run your TiR on the remaining unused core 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

 

Thanks, Dakpilot. Good to hear from them, because now I know why it likes so much an overclock. They probably didn't change anything from ROF's engine.

[Rama]

"The game requires two cores, the operating system requires a single core, so we recommend 4-core cpu."

 

From questions to developers

Can you give a link to the original text?

I would be glad if you do.

 

Ok... just saw it, it's there, and quite fresh (fished this morning...)

[Sim]

6/8 cores will be useful in the near future for other games as the new console generation has 8-core CPUs. Although, right now the best thing you can get for gaming is probably 4670k Haswell (with an overclock to ~4.2 Ghz for some extra juice).

[SYN_DerHesse70]

How sweet. My 4 years old i5-750 is running @ 4GHz (stock 2.66GHz) all day long on air!!

[Sim]

The thing is - Ghz as a number does not really define CPU power any more, IPC does.

 

For example, take the Phenom II X4 965 BE vs 4670K. Both are quad core, and in raw numbers that would be 3.4 Ghz (X4 965 BE) vs 3.8 Ghz (4670K turbo mode). Yet in practice - 4670K can be twice as fast as the old X4 965 BE.

[AndyHill]

Attached is an image of the Windows hardware monitor while RoF is running. By adding planes I got up to 72% utilization on 4 cores (2600K @4,2GHz) at which point (about 70-80 planes) I started getting buffer memory errors and had to stop (used a quick mission generator). Earlier I got a Q6600 to about 100% in a similar experiment and let's just say that when RoF finally runs out of juice you _will_ notice it. 

 

I don't know exactly how RoF multithreading works, but I've never seen another game utilize 100% of a quad core CPU. My guess is that the software threads AI AI and physics calculations, which would potentially mean great scalability in a multi-CPU environment whenever there are large numbers of AI present.

[SYN_DerHesse70]

The thing is - Ghz as a number does not really define CPU power any more, IPC does.

 

For example, take the Phenom II X4 965 BE vs 4670K. Both are quad core, and in raw numbers that would be 3.4 Ghz (X4 965 BE) vs 3.8 Ghz (4670K turbo mode). Yet in practice - 4670K can be twice as fast as the old X4 965 BE.

 That's right, but i think you can get a little bit more clock speed out of this 4670k with good cooling.   Why should i waste it?

[Sim]

 That's right, but i think you can get a little bit more clock speed out of this 4670k with good cooling.   Why should i waste it?

 

Probably, but at least from my experience, Haswell is quite hard to overclock. 4.2 is sort of a safe bet, 4.5 is probably the best you can expect (with a good cooling solution and a bit of luck to get a decent silicon/chip).

[SeaW0lf]

Probably, but at least from my experience, Haswell is quite hard to overclock. 4.2 is sort of a safe bet, 4.5 is probably the best you can expect (with a good cooling solution and a bit of luck to get a decent silicon/chip).

 

Is it that bad? Looks like 4.6GHz is pretty safe. You mean temps or stability? Maybe you got a bad batch or tim paste.

[FuriousMeow]

"The game requires two cores, the operating system requires a single core, so we recommend 4-core cpu."

 

From questions to developers

 

and run your TiR on the remaining unused core 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

It requires two cores - but it will use more. As I posted above, my quad is utilized on all four cores.

 

There is no "remaining" core, I don't have any that ever sit idle.

Probably, but at least from my experience, Haswell is quite hard to overclock. 4.2 is sort of a safe bet, 4.5 is probably the best you can expect (with a good cooling solution and a bit of luck to get a decent silicon/chip).

 

Depends on the chip. Literally depends on the chip fab, some Haswells overclock to 4.7 on water, and another one will only go 4.2 on water.

 

My 4770K is stable at 4.5 on air. I did delid to bring the temperatures down by 20deg C at load.

Edited November 9, 2013 by FuriousMeow

[FuriousMeow]

The thing is - Ghz as a number does not really define CPU power any more, IPC does.

 

And that is very important to reiterate. Great point Sim.