Regarding scheduling issues with system reserved CPU sets

[IF1997]

I have a 13900KS CPU. Then I configured CPUs 8-15 as system reserved cores.Then I set the CPU affinity for games like Naraka: Bladepoint and CS:GO to CPUs [8,10,12,14], and set their CPU set to 8-15. When the games are under high load, they freeze or even cause a black screen shutdown.

If leave other settings unchanged, I set the CPU affinity to 8-15 , this issue does not occur.

But when I set the CPU affinity to 8, 10, 12, 14, I can obviously feel that the game latency is greatly reduced, but it can't last long before it gets stuck, and in a few cases black screen restarted.

Of course, the problem only arises when the system is modified to preserve the CPU.

I don't know much about this knowledge and have a shorter learning time. Is there a better way?

[Jeremy Collake]

You may need to remove the Reserved CPU Sets *or* some of the problematic affinity rules. Not all adjustments will play well together, and in those cases, it is often necessary to simply back them off.

[ethancarter199825]

This is a scheduling bottleneck, not raw CPU power. By pinning to 8,10,12,14 you're starving the game of threads and breaking how the OS balances load across P and E cores. It feels fast briefly but becomes unstable under load.

Better approach is keep affinity wider like 8–15 or let Windows manage it, avoid aggressive core isolation.