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Start game, notice the process it is using or processes and assign it/them to one core, very simple and yes everytime you start the game for now until some fixes go into effect or new games have this solved. Everytime you reboot it will reset explorer.exe to both coresQuote:
Originally Posted by dng29
You are certainly welcome to try to come up with a better solution than say the Engineers at Sony SOE that design the massive multiplayer game called Everquest 2, one of their engineers had this as a temporary fix until they can patch up EQ2 to work with the new AMD X2 dual core properly.Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesAvery22
You certainly are not hindering the OS's performance, I can easily play a game while using my other core to transfer and convert a full DVD to Mpeg4, and OS doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a game's programming
Hmm, I didn't follow much of this, but Grand Theft Auto San Andreas has HUGE problems for me....The time in the game speeds up, cut scenes are skipped through, and driving becomes impossible, is what you are saying that if I set it to only use one core it will work once more?
Thanks,
Yan
Google searches on EQ2 X2 or AMD X2 EQ2 or GTA X2 AMD and the such you will find quite a few articles. It was when a SOE (EQ2) lead programmer said to set one core to Everquest2.exe process for now until a fix can be had to stop the crashing that I knew for sure it was an issue with more than just EQ2. GTA BF2 both exhibit issues in different ways also.Quote:
Originally Posted by angra
The Explorer.exe set to single core and runs subsequent gaming processes and some other apps after was my own brilliance since I got annoyed with having to set the affinity each time I launched
Everquest 2 is not a racing game and LOTR is an RTS, GTA:San Andreas has some racing but not really a racing game :-) All have issuesQuote:
Originally Posted by jinu117
Trust me YES, I am surprised so many with X2 haven't found this solution on the net, wow. Please PM me if it does or doesn't because you would possibly be the only one that told me it didn't work after setting affinity to that process.Quote:
Originally Posted by YanBooth
Yan, this is the exact problem I am having that I mentioned above.Quote:
Originally Posted by YanBooth
OS has everything to do with the games interaction with hardware...Quote:
Originally Posted by pentium777
I just said Im no game programmer. Im just curious as to what is causing the problem. AFAIK setting affinity for a processes would be the same thing as disabling one core and running that same process.
Got any links to the technical reasons?
I don't think that locking a given process to one particular processor is going to hinder whatever load balancing windows is equipped with. In general, a given process is not going to get load balanced by the OS (at least windows, some higher-end, performance/load balancing OSs might do a better job). Whatever load balancing windows does is going to be (for the most part) between processes (well, threads at least, but most likely processes too). So, if you already have a big CPU heavy process running on one core, locking the game to the same core might leave you in a worse state than windows would have given, but that's about the only case I can think of offhand.Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesAvery22
Now, I could be wrong about all of this. i am not familiar with the exacty mechanisms that windows uses for cross-cpu load balancing, but I am somewhat familiar with how it is done in general. And, given the windows market segment, and quality of MS performance optimization in general, I would not expect anything beyond the very simplest schemes.
so to answer your quesiton more briefly: it may hurt the load balancing capabilities of windows a little bit, but it should not really be a significant problem, especially for the games where you have to do this to get them to operate properly.
True but Im thinking about what happens if you have two large processes already running. Or even just one large process running on the CPU that you have the game assigned to. Or, worse case scenario, you have a process running on that CPU that has higher priority so it might not get moved off of that same CPU at all. Moving it to the other CPU is probably a minor hit so no biggie. Course I dont know the exact mechanisms for balancing either. I doubt its a big deal as I can't think of more than a handfull of apps that might cause this in my case. Still something you shouldn't be doing...Quote:
Originally Posted by angra
yes, true, I will agree with that, but since this is a special case of, basically, a bug workaround, I think that the impact is unlikely to be large. I mean, really, are you planning to run 2 mpeg transcodes at high priority, AND play a twitch game all at the same time? And, are you any worse off with this workaround than a non-dual-core CPU? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesAvery22
Of course, if you do the explorer affinity thing, that (I guess I am reading this correctly) runs all apps launched from that shell on the same core, then this could be an issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by angra
Yeah I definitely agree most people wont have the problem. But Im running a debugger right now that takes 30 - 60min runs as well as a bloated UI client. If I was home Id play a game while I waited... And I know the debugger would get priority, dunno about the client. The rest of the stuff I have running is low priority low CPU usage stuff so I only have one process to worry about, right now anyways. when doing this on my home PC its interesting to watch processes get spread around my xeon setup (2 logical and 2 physical). I guess I could diable HT and set affinity to the debugger and see how it effects other apps being balanced. Definitely can't right now though =)
Racing condition I said =_=;Quote:
Originally Posted by pentium777
Okay, I guess majority of people here doesn't have programing background... or circuit design background.
Racing codition is term used for 2 processes accesing each other or some other entity. In doing so, without proper timing, prioritization, etc. Situations arises where unexpected result is obtained. Is applied in signal processing as well.
Simple example.
Proc 0 and Proc 1 is doing simple pass the value from proc 0 to proc 1 through a single address in memory.
Proc 0 sends informaion while proc 1 receives the information.
Information sent and received was meant to be ABCDEF
However, something happened at proc1 and it read one step faster at one point reading ABBCDE.
or, it slowed down and read ABDE* (* being whatever random value)
Now this is overtly simplistic view but what could happen in multi processor environment (and such simple things are well thought out alreadY).
Does it make sense?
As for denouncing X2 driver from AMD... I don't see it doing throttling ever. it actually helped quite a few racing condition issues I had. Give it a shot.
what about playing a game, say fps or sports or rts and doing 3d rendering at the same time. if i set affinity for the game to use cpu0, will the 3d app use cpu1 to render? also do i need to set affinity for the 3d app to use cpu1 or will windows default to use cpu1 to run the 3d app? thanks.
My 4400+! Stepping and some details in sig.
277.7x10 Dual 32M stable (f*** prime, I don't do anything strenuous for 12 hours, so why test for it?!). 2x1024MB (Ballistix) + 2x512MB (4800LA) @ 3-3-3-0 2T 8BI. Max temp was 49C under water.
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/2593/3gb27773dr.jpg
2T is killer:
http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/6...7sandra6dm.jpg
Anything else I should post up?
Yes racing condition, I must read more thoroughly my apologiesQuote:
Originally Posted by jinu117
You'll really have to try it since I have seen apps I run default to both cores as an option and I've also seen where if explorer.exe was set to say CPU 0 the app when launched was set to the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by dng29
Simply put, if you are going to do some heavy multitasking just leave explorer.exe set to both (default after reboot), launch game and set game to affinity whichever core you want
If you are just planning to do some gaming or very light multitasking just set explorer.exe and game away.
Obviously both options should not be needed but until they patch 'em up it is what it is for now. I sure don't enjoy screwing around with the processes but hey I also don't start and stop a game many times in a day either, usually I sit down for an hour or many hours on same game or 2-3 games really is maybe a 5 sec waste of my time per day
Vapor,
I know you say :banana: prime.... You don't do anything for 12 hours but think of this.... Do you want to know absolutely you have a rock stable system? Or do you want to be say in a favorite game at a critical stage or say doing something you don't want a BSOD to happen and boom it happens?
Prime95 is very popular for a good reason small FFT and large FFT, blended ram tests all of them are excellent stability tests, I for one know that I can handle my system stable at 2.7ghz prime for 12-24 hours vs say 2.75 or 2.8 stable for a couple hours. I'll take the slight downclock for a perfectly reliable system. Sometimes it is only a matter of 50mhz to ensure perfect stability, kind of like dialing in a guage to get exact perfection between speed and stability.
Would you run your car on a long trip with say oh 1000 HP with chances of failure or maybe back down to 900 HP and know nothing will go wrong. I know sounds silly but I usually equate auto mechanics to computers.
This is just one thread and not from that lead programmer I mentioned but this should be enough for most people to realize it is a problem. What baffles me is some people reporting they have no issues at all, that just doesn't make sense to me, maybe they just aren't playing the affected games.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messagev...VIEWTMP=Linear
Call me lazy but i don't exactly have the time to read this entire thread. Can anyone give me a rough indication of how these X2s are overclocking, how the cache effects it, and what the sweet spot is? 3800+, 4200+, ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vapor
isn't your sandra int. buffer memory bandwidth kinda low for a chip with 2MB L2 cache. i ran my sandra(latest version) memory bandwidth and got like 20,000+ for int. buffer bandwidth. maybe the mem controller on my chip is fu*&ked :). anyway, got a little bit further with oc now at 2750 with 11x250htt :).
I guess it's a difference of perspectives...my 4400+ isn't a 24/7 rig, but it isn't a benching rig either. It's my 'fun' rig. To put things in some perspective: it hasn't been on for more than 12hrs at a time yet, it hasn't needed to be. Additionally, I can't play games for the next month or so for medical reasons (well, I CAN, but it's tough with only one usable hand :stick: ). For now, it kind of only is a benching rig...but with some function. I've been encoding movies galore and have yet to have a problem at 2700 (with IHS on, haven't done one with the IHS off yet).Quote:
Originally Posted by pentium777
Throw into the mix that my normal use 24/7 system can't complete SPI 2M at stock speeds, and I can't underclock the RAM any further (stupid IWill RDRAM board and stupider RDRAM), 2800 seems VERY stable to me on my new system, let alone the dual 32M stable 2777... It really is all about perspective. Anyway, in about a month my 4400+ will become my 24/7 rig when I go back to school. Then I'm going to downclock to 2.6GHz simply because I want to feel a difference when I get my phase-change unit this winter. I have ZERO doubt it will run at 2.7GHz for 48hrs in dual prime, but if my processor only goes to 2.9 under phase, it will seem like a big fat loss of money to me coming from 2.7.
Anyway, carry on.
20k bandwidth?! Screenie please.Quote:
Originally Posted by dng29
2T is why
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vapor
Yes I just can't justify the $$$ for what you get on overclocking when using phase or any other high end cooling, price of fans and XP-120 was enough for me really and I kind of had a hard time paying the $50+$12 for fan also since I think stock HSF would have gotten me 2.6-2.65ghz but hey at least I squeezed that little bit extra out of it and the cooler and fan will be useful in another board etc later on. Sorry to hear about your medical issue, gaming is my escape from realittt sh..t it's 5pm!! :slapass: what I am still doing here!