multicore and multithread rendering question

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DAT66
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multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by DAT66 »

havent found much about this but, im wondering if this game uses "all available cores" and if it could "multithread rendering". these would improve the performance and maybe also the render distance for foliage and other obstacles like trees and stones^^

something the devs would have to add, since we dont have a .ini file to edit :/

i ask this, because i notice younger games just recently added this. that improved the framerate and the drops of same alot.

if its already in the game, then nevermind ;)
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OldMtnMan
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by OldMtnMan »

I doubt it's even close to using all the cores.
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by EricGiftzahn »

Ok here is what i figured out:
6700k@4,4Ghz 4C8T and RTX2080@2000Mhz

mostly it uses 1 Cores heavily, and 3 Cores less, HT doesn't work at all in most maps
on PB, the Cores are less used then any other Map
on BRR, looking with binos in the tree areas, all Cores were use highly, also Hyper Threading works

So it think it depents on the map what workload you get.
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by Fletchette »

It's a Directx 9 game, so multi-threading is not so great. Back when is was built, most CPUs only had 2-4 cores. It wasn't until DirectX 11/12 that better multi-treading was added by Microsoft.
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Bort
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by Bort »

The game is designed for DirectX 10. The system requirements are listed on each store page for every title available for download on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2537 ... r_Classic/

Code: Select all

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows ® 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU or HigherIntel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz or Higher
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX760 or Higher
DirectX: Version 10
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 16 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
NerdMode:ON

In Windows we can tell how many cores and what an application is using of those cores through the Task Manager in the Performance tab. The CPU graph displays total CPU usage by default. After selecting the CPU graph so it displays Right-Click on the graph it self and select Change Graph To > Local Processors.
Then it will display a graph for all of the local CPU cores your processor has. If you select Copy from the right click menu on one of the core graphs and paste it somewhere, a text document that gives the information of what the entire processor is doing at the time you copied:

Code: Select all

CPU
	(It gives base and default speed information first)
	
	Utilization    7%
	Speed	3.40 GHz
	Up time	4:12:12:25
	Processes	219
	Threads	2732
	Handles	111004
At the bottom of the Task Manager's Performance Tab 'Open Resource Manager' gives a different display layout with more information visible. We can also select an individual PID (Process ID, a program that's running) from the Resource Manager and get a little more info about what that process is doing.

No process should be using more of a single core than the other cores. If it is doing that that is an issue termed Bottle Necking. They should all be having activity that's generally the same. Cores work as a Team, that's what HyperThreading is. HyperThreading is the machine spreading the process usage between all of the cores (and memory) instead of using one core. Processes usually don't, and shouldn't, use one core until it maxes a single core out and start using other cores as the resources in one of them becomes exhausted. That's not how it works, they work as a team. Well...they should be working as a team. If they're not that's an issue you might want to have addressed.

Fixing a bottle necking issue is replacing the processor most of the time if a person wants it fixed because it's causing things to be too slow for them. Applications still run with bottle necking happening they just won't run as fast and as well as they can be.

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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by Fletchette »

Bort wrote:The game is designed for DirectX 10. The system requirements are listed on each store page for every title available for download on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2537 ... r_Classic/

Code: Select all

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows ® 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU or HigherIntel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz or Higher
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX760 or Higher
DirectX: Version 10
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 16 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
And if you look at the minimum requirements right on that same page, you'll see that it's DirectX 9. Later versions of DirectX installations (10,11,12) still include support and calls to DirectX 9.

The game is designed and built on DirectX 9.0C. I think the old Avalanche engine it uses is also DirectX 9.

If you load the Process Explorer while the game is running, you'll see that it's using the DirectX 9 Dlls. In particular:
D3D9.dll
D3DX9.dll
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Fletchette
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by Fletchette »

Bort wrote:No process should be using more of a single core than the other cores.
Only if the application supports multi-threading...
Bort wrote:Cores work as a Team, that's what HyperThreading is. HyperThreading is the machine spreading the process usage between all of the cores (and memory) instead of using one core.
That's not what HyperThreading is. HyperThreading is an Intel only term, and means running two logical threads on one physical core. AMD calls it Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) on ZEN processors. I think Intel has dropped Hyperthreading on many newer processors.
Bort wrote:Processes usually don't, and shouldn't, use one core until it maxes a single core out and start using other cores as the resources in one of them becomes exhausted. That's not how it works, they work as a team. Well...they should be working as a team. If they're not that's an issue you might want to have addressed.
Again, only if the application is written to be multi-threaded. Fortunately Windows is Multi-Threaded, so windows will often run different processes/applications on separate threads/cores.
Bort wrote:Fixing a bottle necking issue is replacing the processor most of the time if a person wants it fixed because it's causing things to be too slow for them.
LOL...No. For games, more often than not, the GPU is the bottleneck. Sometimes it's memory, or RAM speed, or bus speed, or storage speed, or even the network. Sometimes the bottleneck is an optimization issue. In the end, there is always going to be a bottleneck somewhere, or the program/game would run at unlimited speed.
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DAT66
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by DAT66 »

thx for you replys.

im aware that its an old game on an old engine with old tools(directx).

my hardware (phenomX4, 3ghz, radeon rx550 4gb dx11, 8gb ddr3ram 1666mhz) is nowhere near that Steam requirements, but it runns this game quite smooth (50-80fps) alot of other, newer games too ^^ exept timber and piccabeen, they sometime stutter if the framerate drops below 25fps

while your technical knowledge is far superior to mine, i have tried my self in modding games and editing .ini's (skyrim seems lame to mention, but its alot of work to run that on a 1gb vram card^^ justsaying).

latly the game elderscolls online, that i play alot, has added mutithread rendering. while i was checking the ini, bc some players mentioned it wouldnt change anything, i sah my game was running on 1 core only ^^ change the lines
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "-4"
SET RequestedNumJobThreads "4"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "4"
and had a increase in framrate and less drops - non so low that it would stutter.

now i was thinking that this game, like Skyrim (2011 released), could have "use all cores" or not, but we cant edit any file here.
my question was: does the game have it or not, is it working or not?
maybe that different maps, have different performance quality, due to things like other textures/format or bad optimization, but the basic game will still have "use 1 core only" or "use all cores"

the task manager cant help with this, it would only give a clue. these days alone the OS will use all cores, so it always will be some load on several cores.

and im with @Fletchette here, afaik - hyperthreading is a complete other thing, that my hardware certainly cant do, due to its age ;)

anyways, thx for joining the discussion, maybe some of the dev team (thx for your effords latly) can have a look if they can add such thing. that would increase the performance and the player base would notice that, and maybe increase, too.
just have a look at the playerbase of CotW, despite some problems, many people buy it and are quite fond of it (graphic w...rs??).

good hunting
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by Bort »

DAT66 wrote:thx for you replys.

latly the game elderscolls online, that i play alot, has added mutithread rendering. while i was checking the ini, bc some players mentioned it wouldnt change anything, i sah my game was running on 1 core only ^^ change the lines
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "-4"
SET RequestedNumJobThreads "4"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "4"
and had a increase in framrate and less drops - non so low that it would stutter.

good hunting
Those settings tell the game how much stuff to send to the Graphics Card's processor. Not the CPU's cores. The GPU can be controlled by a games software and it's own software and windows. The running process the CPU runs can be controlled through windows settings but not through a game's coding. The CPU shares recourses with all of it's cores unless a person has disabled a core or told a process not to use all of them (which doesn't make sense to do IMO).

Elder Scrolls is a fairly resource hungry game from what I know of it. I assume (assumptions are usually wrong) that game has those settings because it's as resource hungry as it is and they have it set lower by default to optimize the game for lower-end computer (graphics cards and GPU's).

No, there isn't a config file we can access and edit for this game. I agree it would be nice to have one. I think the reason one has never been released is because of the game engine's age. That's my opinion and thought. I don't know for sure why they haven't provided a config file we can edit to tweak things with.
It's an old game. It should run on almost any computer anyone has now.
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Re: multicore and multithread rendering question

Post by DAT66 »

as less as i know about computers, these are settings for the CPU ^^, my GPU hasnt got 4 cores. you may continue to correct me, but all games i could edit, the ini had such or simular lines for the CPU.

i aggree that using severall cores has to be some part of coding. thats why i was asking here, and hoped for a statement of some company employee, what is or what will be. only they can say if its possible to add the line and if it will have an effect.

the game Skyrim was developed around the same time, and even Fallout New Vegas few years befor, did profit from changing the ini line to "useAllAvailableCores". although that wasnt in the default settings from the game itself, it was added by the players (told by modders).

i aggree, that most pc's today should run this without issues
still it could improve this game since its a 32bit programm and has its own restrictions, no matter how powerfull you pc is, this game will never use more that 3.5gb ram, if its isnt updated to a 64bit engine.

edit:
i belive the reason we dont have a config (or .ini) is, because the multiplayer option, competitions and the way this game packs the files.
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