Running Game or MultiMedia Process

[lmstearn]

Hi there,
Running ES: Oblivion on a 6 core AMD fx 6200, classified as "Game or MultiMedia Process."
Hooked it to cores 0,2,3,4,5,- it's poorly optimized as it only uses one (and a bit) threads.
Perhaps there is a better method: cores 0,2,4 or just 2,4?

The question is with game performance.
On a few sessions it runs well (17+ FPS) and other times poorly 8+ FPS.

The question is regarding the CPU Parking (currently on Power Saver)
The per core CPU Utilization graph nicely shows the parked cores.

The per core CPU Utilization graph does not show the selected cores being used by the game when it is launched, however,
(Gaming and Multimedia mode is now automatically on)

The conundrum is whether this is can point to a hardware issue.

Does ProBalance play an active role in handling these Games or MultiMedia Processes?

[BenYeeHua]

Hi, as it is not a bug, so I moving it to Process Lasso board.
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First, read this.
https://bitsum.com/forum/index.php/topic,3756.0.html

So yup, Process Lasso or ProBalance don't increase the FPS, but it reduce the chance the game get too much FPS loss, if there are some background processesrunning, and using too much CPU than the foreground process, which is the game etc will be stutter.

And nope, Process Lasso is not a kernel like Windows, Windows has do a good jobs on foreground process, but not the background processes, which is the issues that ProBalance is trying to solve or prevent it happen.

Anyways, Elder Scrolls games always need single thread performance, which is now all AMD CPU lack of, if you don't wanna upgrade your hardware/CPU, then you can:
1.Upgrade to Windows 8.1, which has been optimized the scheduler/kernel to AMD bulldozer architecture to increase the single thread performance
2.Overclock your CPU
3.Unpark your CPU

PS:Yes, this is a hardware issues, which is AMD CPU having a very low single thread performance than the Intel Desktop i3, it is very good only if you are playing multi-thread optimized game.

[lmstearn]

Thanks for your reply BenYeeHua,

First, read this.

Thanks, am running Win8.1.

optimized the scheduler/kernel to AMD bulldozer architecture to increase the single thread performance

Interesting. This may be working, but not all the time. Do you know if it is tweakable or at least refer on any links that help here?

Overclock your CPU

No. One bad experience in the past with a GPU. Never again. Happy with the 70%.

Unpark your CPU

This is the reason for this post on your forum. If cores are parked, then does running a game with "Gaming and Multimedia mode is now automatically on" unpark the CPU?

Quoting again: The per core CPU Utilization graph does not show the selected cores being used by the game when it is launched, however,


Does this imply that one must manually unpark and repark the cores when launching and exiting the game respectively? This was the reason of the post to the Bugs section, as surely something like this could be automated by Process Lasso.


It's the nature of the problem that's warranted the post here. If the game performed consistently bad, I would be 100% certain that it is related to hardware. Because it performs well in some sessions but not in others, then Process Lasso might provide some answers. One just has to know where to look.

One or two things come to mind: System memory caching of the game after it is launched and closed. Should one use a program like RamBooster to wipe RAM before a rerun of the process?
Further, with ProBalance switched on, surely that would alert the user to any Bitcoin virus-like CPU eaters running in the background.

With the H/W limitations confirmed, I ask again, that with 6 cores, (3 logical, 3 physical) what would be your suggestion regarding CPU affinity when "optimizing the scheduler/kernel to AMD bulldozer architecture to increase the single thread performance"?

[BenYeeHua]

optimized the scheduler/kernel to AMD bulldozer architecture to increase the single thread performance

Interesting. This may be working, but not all the time. Do you know if it is tweakable or at least refer on any links that help here?

Nope, it is enabled as default.

No. One bad experience in the past with a GPU. Never again. Happy with the 70%.

Ya, if you has bad lucky for overclock, that will be happen.
But GPU is more easier to broken than CPU for overclocking, as GPU don't like CPU having BSoD etc to protect the hardware keeping damaged.

It is bad luck that you want to overclock your GPU, but not CPU first.

This is the reason for this post on your forum. If cores are parked, then does running a game with "Gaming and Multimedia mode is now automatically on" unpark the CPU?

Nope, but it might be adding into the new gaming mode, just like the ProBalance, I agree the gaming mode should be doing more thing than current version.

Quoting again: The per core CPU Utilization graph does not show the selected cores being used by the game when it is launched, however,


Does this imply that one must manually unpark and repark the cores when launching and exiting the game respectively? This was the reason of the post to the Bugs section, as surely something like this could be automated by Process Lasso.


It's the nature of the problem that's warranted the post here. If the game performed consistently bad, I would be 100% certain that it is related to hardware. Because it performs well in some sessions but not in others, then Process Lasso might provide some answers. One just has to know where to look.

Just as above, and more gamer will choose to change their Power Plan, I will recommend that you change the core-parking setting via difference Power Plan, and set the process that you want to disable core-parking to the Power Plan.
And doing this is more safe than tweaking the current Power Plan many times by Process Lasso.

One or two things come to mind: System memory caching of the game after it is launched and closed. Should one use a program like RamBooster to wipe RAM before a rerun of the process?

No, this is not a good ways to do it, the ways to wipe the RAM is not push the other useful data too into PageFile, what you need to do is just empty the standby list, and SuperFetch will re-cache the file you will need later.
http://forum.sysinternals.com/rammap-empty-standby-list_topic27297_post132769.html#132769

PS:I don't tested this software yet, but you can give a try.

Further, with ProBalance switched on, surely that would alert the user to any Bitcoin virus-like CPU eaters running in the background.

Good question, but most Bitcoin virus is GPU eaters, so...
---
Anyways, this is not a bad thing, but too bad the balloon tips which is the thing that you might mean is removed, and it may coming back depend on how many people need it.
https://bitsum.com/forum/index.php/topic,3371.0.html

As there are many function to give a similar alert, like the Process Lasso Tray icon that showing CPU usage, which is used by many people, I wonder this new function(monitoring a process that running long enough and biting 1 core etc, then showing a balloon tip) is needed by many people...

With the H/W limitations confirmed, I ask again, that with 6 cores, (3 logical, 3 physical) what would be your suggestion regarding CPU affinity when "optimizing the scheduler/kernel to AMD bulldozer architecture to increase the single thread performance"?

My suggestion is, do a benchmark, see if there are difference.
Or just don't set it.

As I said, Windows 8.1 has been optimized the scheduler/kernel to AMD bulldozer architecture, so I think there is no needed to "teach" the scheduler how to put the threads to get best performance.

[lmstearn]

Thanks BenYeeHua 

[BenYeeHua]

You are welcome.

[lmstearn]

BTW BenYeeHua.
I just realized that all that was needed was to add the game in "Power Profiles" as "High Performance."
It works: no need to manually unpark the CPU. 

[BenYeeHua]

Yup, just switch to the power plan with the setting that you want, is better than switch the current power plan setting.