SOWgb and Affinity cpu usage.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

I could be very wrong with this. I have a quad core 3.0 ghz machine. I am playing a game at the moment (corp vs corps, line of site, GCM Kansas Map), and I noticed that all my CPU's are marked as being used (selecting affinity), and I read somewhere that the majority of games out there do not use more than one cpu (unless it was designed to use more than one), and in some cases can cause those games to slow down, and act erratic.

So I decided to set SOWgb to use only one cpu, and the game sped up quite a bit. Now I could be just imagining this, but it did appear to really work....

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Here is a program I'm going to test out. It's called Run with Affinity. This util will allow me to set how many cpus I wish to use, and create a shortcut so alt-tabbing will no longer be required.

Link: http://www.wieldraaijer.nl/

[Michael Slaunwhite]

I have tried the software out, and it does what it says it will do. I now have SOWgb running on one cpu, and the program will create a desktop icon so you no longer have to alt-tab out to set the number of cpu's to use.

You have to remember that if the program is not written to use more than one cpu, setting the number above one cpu will NOT speed up your game any.

Note: When selecting to download this util, and others on this website please select the GREEN arrow (pointing down) for Windows operating systems.

[Davinci]

You have to remember that if the program is not written to use more than one cpu, setting the number above one cpu will NOT speed up your game any.

It has been a while since I first heard about this, but do a Google Search about the Pro's and Con's of doing this, sometimes it will increase the temp of the cpu, and the computer.

That is not good!

davinci

[Michael Slaunwhite]

You have to remember that if the program is not written to use more than one cpu, setting the number above one cpu will NOT speed up your game any.

It has been a while since I first heard about this, but do a Google Search about the Pro's and Con's of doing this, sometimes it will increase the temp of the cpu, and the computer.

That is not good!

davinci

Sounds more like you are talking about over-clocking your system? Setting your Affinity will not do that.

If a program is designed to use one CPU that is all the program will use no matter if you have 100 CPU's active. If the operating system has it set to use say 4 cpu's, and by setting your cpu count from 4 to 1 all you are really doing is removing the potential conflict that may, or may not occur while running the program, and that is all.

I was doing some reading yesterday about assigning different programs to use different CPU's. One program would use say #1, another to use #2, and so on. I have never tried that, and I have no interest in doing it.

I could be wrong on this though.

[Davinci]

If a program is designed to use one CPU that is all the program will use no matter if you have 100 CPU's active.

I'll just say OK and leave it at that!

It is your Computer that you are probably tearing-up for maybe one more frame-per-second!

davinci

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Hmmm, I just finished up reading on affinity, and if it would cause overheating. The only thing I was able to find about Affinity, and overheating is using Affinity to help reduce overheating on systems with multiple cores.

There are also sites which explain that in order to have older games run on quad, or dual core systems the only way to get them to work is to set your number of CPU's to a single cpu.

The only thing I have read which warns about using Affinity is NOT to set it for any Windows services which are running.

Since you have mentioned this will cause overheating, I must be missing something. If you have any information please post the website or article talking about affinity, and it causing overheating because I just can't find anything that talks about it doing that.

[Davinci]

If this process works for you, well that means that your computer does better with this than mine does for me.

Three pictures taking looking at roughly the same scenery, with roughly the same amount of men in each picture.

I tried to pick an area of the battle that has the lowest frames-per-second to illustrate my point here!

First Picture – using the standard default settings with the Affinity

Second Picture – Game set to use cpu (0) – but I went one step farther than you did, I set all of the other background programs to use only the following (cpu1, cpu2, cpu3). So the game is the only one showing that is using (cpu (0))

Third Picture – exact settings as (Second Picture).

First Picture – frames drop down to roughly (9fps) at this angle, mostly due to the smoke settings.

Second Picture – frames will rise too (13fps) notice that there is less smoke.

Third Picture – frames drop back down too (9fps) due to smoke settings.

Conclusion – changing this Affinity Setting in my game does absolutely nothing !

What , I think that you are doing is changing your camera view, this will change the drawing on the screen, so you think that it is changing your fps , but it is probably not!

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davinci

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Hmmm, I can't read the screenshots. Maybe I am wrong, but when I first alt-tabbed out, and set the game to use cpu0 only, then jumped back in the game appeared to be running much smoother after I made the changes. I didn't have the Debug option on so like I mentioned in my first post the change could have been imaginary which spurred me on to get a copy of "Run with Affinity".

Your definitely correct, the fps changes as you change your viewpoint no doubt about it, but what I am looking for is a stable trustworthy frame rate without me having to keep changing my settings for each scenario. Too bad there isn't a small util, or built in limiter which will always check your frame rates, and if it drops below a certain point it will automatically adjust your graphics for you.

I run Arma2 Operation Arrow with the Ace2 realism mod almost maxed out, and man I fly with that game. My system runs this puppy full bore, if any game on the market that will test out your system it would be this game, but SOWgb seems to have bumped Arma2/OA for testing purposes off the map.

Oh well, thanks Davinci for your patience, and suggestions.

[Davinci]

Mike – you have to take into consideration that this game, and another game are basically still games, but games that are doing completely different things.

Whether or not the screen is viewing the action that is taking place, the action is still happening all over the battlefield.

It’s not like you can move the camera and the action on that part of the field stops. Everything is still happening in real-time , or in real-game-time if there is a difference.

As, mentioned above, or in one of the previous topics, find an OOB that works with your Computer, my settings seem to work with an Army of approximately 42,000 men , or roughly sixteen brigades in each force.

I wish that it could do more, but this is my limit, so I try to make the best of it!

davinci