Process Lasso helping run games that have multicore problems

[reiichiroh]

So on Ryzen CPUs with higher core counts, some older games choke if the core count is higher than 4 and you have to force affinity to only use 4 or 6 cores. Since Windows has no way of doing this persistently, Process Lasso has come to the rescue by allowing me to force the affinity to just those 4 cores on a persistent basis by detection for DiRT4.exe.

Some other games, this doesn't work for and insist on disabling SMT, either through an overclocking utility like Ryzen Master or via the UEFI/BIOS.

Is there any way to to fake disable SMT in software?

Cheers.

[Jeremy Collake]

Can you give me an example of a game that insists on SMT being disabled? I will put it on the list to check out, then can respond about the feasibility of solutions.

Thanks!

[reiichiroh]

Lost Planet 2 is one example of a game that's still being sold despite having discontinued (shut down by MS but still working) DRM middleware in the form of Games For Windows Live:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/45750/Lost_Planet_2/

Setting affinities didn't seem to work for it but disabling SMT in Ryzen Master worked. I have a Ryzen 2700 and some other comments from people with the same problems and recent AMD CPUs indicate that setting it to "Legacy Compatibility Mode" in Ryzen Master would do the trick. LCM is only available to CPUs higher than 8, like the more heavy duty AMD Threadrippers. A well known limitation of some older games requiring the CPU/PC be put into LCM to run games.

These changes involve rebooting and are a minor inconvenience so that's why I was wondering if Process Lasso can do it. If not, no biggie as these are older games so not much effort should be expended. Thanks.

On a related note, there is 1 game I know of that will refuse to run (Starlink the battle for Atlas) by Ubisoft and requires virtualization be disabled completely in BIOS/UEFI to work--a consequence of the Denovo antitamper copy protection it uses. Most games patch it out after the initial sale period but it seems Ubisoft hasn't bothered to update/remove it. I know bypassing detection of virtualization features is more of a malware focused tactic so I don't expect this to be possible.

Cheers.

[Jeremy Collake]

Thanks, I'll report back when I've taken a closer look.

[TheRealBix]

Lost Planet 2 is one example of a game that's still being sold despite having discontinued (shut down by MS but still working) DRM middleware in the form of Games For Windows Live:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/45750/Lost_Planet_2/

Setting affinities didn't seem to work for it but disabling SMT in Ryzen Master worked. I have a Ryzen 2700 and some other comments from people with the same problems and recent AMD CPUs indicate that setting it to "Legacy Compatibility Mode" in Ryzen Master would do the trick. LCM is only available to CPUs higher than 8, like the more heavy duty AMD Threadrippers. A well known limitation of some older games requiring the CPU/PC be put into LCM to run games.

These changes involve rebooting and are a minor inconvenience so that's why I was wondering if Process Lasso can do it. If not, no biggie as these are older games so not much effort should be expended. Thanks.

On a related note, there is 1 game I know of that will refuse to run (Starlink the battle for Atlas) by Ubisoft and requires virtualization be disabled completely in BIOS/UEFI to work--a consequence of the Denovo antitamper copy protection it uses. Most games patch it out after the initial sale period but it seems Ubisoft hasn't bothered to update/remove it. I know bypassing detection of virtualization features is more of a malware focused tactic so I don't expect this to be possible.

Cheers.

Try with CPU sets instead if CPU affinity doesn't work.