Dual Core Problems in games? Are AMD going to do anything?

[Hicks]

Ok iam getting a bit pissed of with problems on my X2 4400+ with games.

Serious Sam 2 has major sound issues, and it goes away when i set affinity to 1 core. Ive installed the Windows hotfix as well.

Now ive seen a lot of other people having problems, so it's obviously, an AMD X2 problem. What are AMD going to do about it?

[Vapor]

It's a software/Windows problem....they don't know how to handle two real cores (they can handle one physical and one logical processor fine, but not two physical CPUs)....it happens with PDs and dual CPU systems as well. The X2 processor isn't flawed in this sense.

EDIT: IIRC, the Windows hotfix was not intended to address this issue, it was intended to address the issue that when CnQ is on, Windows likes to switch which core a task is assigned to (for power saving reasons) bringing very slow performance on single core applications. Installing it when you do not have a problem will often reduce performance and has the potential to cause other problems.

amdcpu.exe (google it) is the X2 driver, it might or might not help you (you can also use /pmtimer or whatever).

[Ugly n Grey]

Did you add this to the last line of your windows startup?
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

It is a microdork problem, not a CPU problem as Vapor has indicated.

[Hicks]

Did you add this to the last line of your windows startup?
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

It is a microdork problem, not a CPU problem as Vapor has indicated.

No how do i do this? Thanks.

[Frambosie]

Well, i do think that the issue is not an AMD problem but a Microsoft issue, as XP wasnt designed with the forethought of dual core/dual processor systems. Reguardless, if you are having issues windows did release a hotfix that is soposed to fix any issues. I know i didnt experience any issues, the only "issue" was that XP was reporting my CPU as an "Unknown Hammer Family" until i updated my bios. AFter that no issues, installed the hotfix reguardless.

[Ugly n Grey]

The hotfix is garbage basically. Windows multi CPU HAL works fine on normal use, but games are unusual in that they often peg a processor at 100 percent solid even if nothing is going on. So switching the thread to another CPU causes stutters. Making those changes to the boot.ini stops most of that. Fixes aquamark benching too.

[eBoy0]

Did you add this to the last line of your windows startup?
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

It is a microdork problem, not a CPU problem as Vapor has indicated.

Do you add this ANYWHERE in the .txt file?

[Ugly n Grey]

no, it goes on the end of a windows startup statement, it's just a series of switches....
Here's a Typical example, do not cut and paste this whole thing, your install may be different...

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

[eBoy0]

no, it goes on the end of a windows startup statement, it's just a series of switches....
Here's a Typical example, do not cut and paste this whole thing, your install may be different...

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

Ahhhh! that's why it wasn't didn't make a visual diffrence, i was putting it in the wrong spot.

[Stewie007]

In order to get full Dual Core Support, you have to spend money on Windows Vista... *snickers*

They won't release a TRUE patch for XP until profits on Vista are looking quite handsome.

[IYP]

In order to get full Dual Core Support, you have to spend money on Windows Vista... *snickers*

They won't release a TRUE patch for XP until profits on Vista are looking quite handsome.

ah the wonders of big company greed

[nn_step]

hence I stick with Free Quality products http://openbsd.org/ and http://www.dragonflybsd.org/main/

[-n7-]

Did you add this to the last line of your windows startup?
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

It is a microdork problem, not a CPU problem as Vapor has indicated.

What does that do exactly?

I am wondering because i use a multithreaded program that i do not want to cripple.

[Ugly n Grey]

it won't cripple your multithreaded apps if that's what you are concerned about.

/usepmtimer enables a steady clock rate in place of the processor frequency for those who have already mistakenly added the AMD C&Q driver. For those who definitely don't have have it (C&Q) installed it will have no effect on anything because the artifical clock rate and processor frequency will be the exact same.

While this is all the very official explanation, on multi core environments it seems to have a stabilizing effect on games because it seems to stop passing the thread of a single threaded application back and forth between two processors.

/NoExecute=OptIn
This setting is the default configuration. On systems with processors that can implement hardware-enforced DEP, DEP is enabled by default for limited system binaries and programs that "opt-in." With this option, only Windows system binaries are covered by DEP by default.

DEP is efectively the the NX instruction parameter on your AMD proc. It can prevent malicious code from being executed on your proc, but guess what, some games launch weird instructions from places where they should not . Typically, code is not executed from the default heap and the stack. But on some games it is. Lovely. There is something different about the way Win handles this on multi proc implementations, setting this switch can fix problems. This setting still enables NX for Windows system files so the odds of getting malicious code being executed via infection of a Windoesn't system files is still eliminated.

The best part about this, is if it doesn't fix you problems, it can be removed so easily... sweet. I found you pretty much need this line to be able to run Aquamark for example on x2 procs with any reasonable performance.

Hope that helps
UnG

[-n7-]

it won't cripple your multithreaded apps if that's what you are concerned about.

/usepmtimer enables a steady clock rate in place of the processor frequency for those who have already mistakenly added the AMD C&Q driver. For those who definitely don't have have it (C&Q) installed it will have no effect on anything because the artifical clock rate and processor frequency will be the exact same.

While this is all the very official explanation, on multi core environments it seems to have a stabilizing effect on games because it seems to stop passing the thread of a single threaded application back and forth between two processors.

/NoExecute=OptIn
This setting is the default configuration. On systems with processors that can implement hardware-enforced DEP, DEP is enabled by default for limited system binaries and programs that "opt-in." With this option, only Windows system binaries are covered by DEP by default.

DEP is efectively the the NX instruction parameter on your AMD proc. It can prevent malicious code from being executed on your proc, but guess what, some games launch weird instructions from places where they should not . Typically, code is not executed from the default heap and the stack. But on some games it is. Lovely. There is something different about the way Win handles this on multi proc implementations, setting this switch can fix problems. This setting still enables NX for Windows system files so the odds of getting malicious code being executed via infection of a Windoesn't system files is still eliminated.

The best part about this, is if it doesn't fix you problems, it can be removed so easily... sweet. I found you pretty much need this line to be able to run Aquamark for example on x2 procs with any reasonable performance.

Hope that helps
UnG

Thanx

[Gitsum]

What about Server 2003? Does it behave the same way?

and in response to nn_step, I didn't know Serious Sam II was available for Linux.
That's neat. I know that so many Linux fans are just itchin to play some games with their rigs. Cause you know, most Linux users really use Linux for the games.

[Ugly n Grey]

Yes Server 2003 behaves the same way, server is optimized for multi threaded applications, so single threaded games/apps can have some issues. You don't notice this on business applications because there is rarely a constant VISUAL output like there is in games.

The Multi CPU HAL (hardware abstract layer) for 2003 is not all that different in most cases from the HAL for XP.

[Vapor]

Business applications are also more thoroughly tested on multi-CPU/core systems.

If there's a problem with your code, it will more likely show on a multi-CPU system (or so I've heard, I don't actually understand why ).

[flick]

Hi,

So Hicks, you installed both the AMD X2 driver and the Microsoft 896256 hotfix and you're still having problems? That's weird. I had the exact same problems with the same game. I downloaded both the hotfix and the driver, followed by the registry entry, which I left as a 1 and all of my gaming problems completly disappeared. I had to do the same thing to the game with affinity to make it work until I did the above. Now all of my games run as smooth as glass. Good luck.

[shawn1998]

All my games worked great after that, too, with the exception of Serious Sam 2. This game is the one exception. No matter what I do, the sound will not work correctly.

Shawn

[dng29]

Please help. This is my sys specs:

4400 x2
1Gig g.skill tccd pc3200
7800gt
550W antec true power
2 SATA drives

The problem i'm having is stuttering or flickering while playing games. every 3 sec. the screen would stutter. My x2 is oced to 2.8Ghz with bios 6.23. I'm running winxp sp2 with amd x2 driver. i'm using forceware beta driver 81.84(this driver is optimized for dual core). I've tried the recent hotfix and that didn't help. i've tried editing the boot.ini, but that didn't do much. when i installed forceware 78.01(official driver) games run fine. 78.01 driver is not optimized for dual core though. this problem is driving me nuts . any help will be greatly appreciated . thanks in advance.

[REBEL900]

Yes Server 2003 behaves the same way, server is optimized for multi threaded applications, so single threaded games/apps can have some issues. You don't notice this on business applications because there is rarely a constant VISUAL output like there is in games.

The Multi CPU HAL (hardware abstract layer) for 2003 is not all that different in most cases from the HAL for XP.

How about Dual CPU systems? not dual core single CPU's

Thanks.

[alexio]

Please help. This is my sys specs:

4400 x2
1Gig g.skill tccd pc3200
7800gt
550W antec true power
2 SATA drives

The problem i'm having is stuttering or flickering while playing games. every 3 sec. the screen would stutter. My x2 is oced to 2.8Ghz with bios 6.23. I'm running winxp sp2 with amd x2 driver. i'm using forceware beta driver 81.84(this driver is optimized for dual core). I've tried the recent hotfix and that didn't help. i've tried editing the boot.ini, but that didn't do much. when i installed forceware 78.01(official driver) games run fine. 78.01 driver is not optimized for dual core though. this problem is driving me nuts . any help will be greatly appreciated . thanks in advance.

Beta drivers are often buggy, I think you just have to use the 78.01 driver untill the 81.84 driver final version is released.

[dng29]

Beta drivers are often buggy, I think you just have to use the 78.01 driver untill the 81.84 driver final version is released.

anyone have a similar setup as mine? could you please post your recommendation for a fix. thanks .

p.s. i also tried the recently release 81.85 driver and that didn't help either. i guess it's a driver issue afterall, sucks.

[Ugly n Grey]

How about Dual CPU systems? not dual core single CPU's

Thanks.

Same, but with server 2003 and dual Opterons on NUMA boards you get quite a little memory bandwidth boost.