Are there any plans for optimisation of the game for 2-cores processors?

[felixitur]

Is Egosoft plan to optimize performance of the game for 2-core processors?

I mean that the game load a 2-cores processor for 50-100% depending on graphical settings, meanwhile FPS do not depend on processor load.

[lrdkar]

From other posts I have seen, that has been the big argument. Wether it should be 2 threads or one. Don't forget this game does run on DirectX 9, not 11 unfortunately.

Personally I would like to see it, just to see if its not as taxing on the cpus.

[Nukah]

Is Egosoft plan to optimize performance of the game for 2-core processors?

I mean that the game load a 2-cores processor for 50-100% depending on graphical settings, meanwhile FPS do not depend on processor load.

Why would FPS not depend on processor load?

[Shootist]

meanwhile FPS do not depend on processor load.

In Rebirth FPS absolutely depends on processor load.

[BigBANGtheory]

meanwhile FPS do not depend on processor load.

In Rebirth FPS absolutely depends on processor load.

I wish that were true at all levels.

[Bobucles]

Rebirth definitely uses multiple cores. It could probably use them more effectively, but it's there.

[felixitur]

Rebirth definitely uses multiple cores. It could probably use them more effectively, but it's there.

Yes, but it requires 3 core minimum meanwhile even 2 cor can't load at 100%. It seems the game do no reaaly need of 3 and more cores.
That is why I ask if Egosoft has plans to optimize the game for 2-cores processor.

[Geek]

@ Op : This would be a terrible idea.

First it would waste the effort of creating a multithreaded engine. Then people using better hardware would be penalized. Since there are already many reports about XR not doing well on high end machines, this is definitely the wrong way to go.

[felixitur]

You know, the most of people still have single core processors or 2-cores. Games which require minimum quad-core processor lose a lot of players.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

You know, the most of people still have single core processors or 2-cores. Games which require minimum quad-core processor lose a lot of players.

According to Steam 2 Physical Cores or less account for approx. half of the Steam users and is in gradual decline (about 90% of them have 2 physical cores).

How many of those dual cores have Intel HT (or employ AMD module) technology would be the next point (meaning they are Quad thread/virtual Quad cores/AMD Quad Cores).

Remember the minimum is an i-Series, and the expectation is probably that it is at least a dual core with Hyper Threading.

[felixitur]

You know, the most of people still have single core processors or 2-cores. Games which require minimum quad-core processor lose a lot of players.

According to Steam 2 Physical Cores or less account for approx. half of the Steam users and is in gradual decline (about 90% of them have 2 physical cores).

How many of those dual cores have Intel HT (or employ AMD module) technology would be the next point (meaning they are Quad thread/virtual Quad cores/AMD Quad Cores).

Remember the minimum is an i-Series, and the expectation is probably that it is at least a dual core with Hyper Threading.

Hyper Threading is hard to control for programmers and it adds a few percents to overall performance. So we are talking about phisical cores only. When the game moves from dual core system to 3-core's you may see significant increasing in performance. Please see pictures at links below.
Dual core systems (and, as was mentioned, a lot of players) suffer from not acceptible FPS.

http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--w ... _intel.jpg
From here:
http://gamegpu.ru/racing-simulators-/-g ... t-gpu.html

[momurda]

if you dont meet the minimum specs, how can you expect to play the game?

[Cdaragorn]

You know, the most of people still have single core processors or 2-cores. Games which require minimum quad-core processor lose a lot of players.

According to Steam 2 Physical Cores or less account for approx. half of the Steam users and is in gradual decline (about 90% of them have 2 physical cores).

How many of those dual cores have Intel HT (or employ AMD module) technology would be the next point (meaning they are Quad thread/virtual Quad cores/AMD Quad Cores).

Remember the minimum is an i-Series, and the expectation is probably that it is at least a dual core with Hyper Threading.

Hyper Threading is hard to control for programmers and it adds a few percents to overall performance. So we are talking about phisical cores only. When the game moves from dual core system to 3-core's you may see significant increasing in performance. Please see pictures at links below.
Dual core systems (and, as was mentioned, a lot of players) suffer from not acceptible FPS.

http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--w ... _intel.jpg
From here:
http://gamegpu.ru/racing-simulators-/-g ... t-gpu.html

This is not how multithreading works. Having 3 threads on 2 cores may see a drop in performance, but that depends on how cpu heavy each thread is, not on how many threads there are. While sometimes it can be useful to choose to spawn threads based on the number of cores, X Rebirth has 3 main threads that are needed at all times. It could perhaps create worker threads to put on more cores if it found them available, but you are not usually able to optimize for number of cores. You optimize for number of unique operations that benefit from having their own thread. Unless your operations are extremely cpu heavy, having 2 or 3 more threads then you have cores will not cause a significant drop in performance thanks to things like hyperthreading.

And as far as controlling hyperthreading, you don't. Hyperthreading makes it faster for the processor to switch between threads, it is not something the programmer ever has any control over.

As has been mentioned, if you don't meet the minimum requirements, don't complain when the game doesn't work as well for you. Be thankful you can play it.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Hyper-Threading provides variable performance gains based on the workload as do AMD Modules.

I have seen a pretty even distribution of work-load across my 8 AMD Piledriver cores (considered 4 cores by Steam).

The point does still stand... we do not know how many of those dual cores are simple dual cores, HTed dual cores, or AMD dual modules/quad cores.

As for optimising for 2-cores, I highly doubt it. The recommended is 4 cores and the minimum is 2-cores (probably with HT - some older I-series do not have HT though).

[felixitur]

Hyper-Threading provides variable performance gains based on the workload as do AMD Modules.

I have seen a pretty even distribution of work-load across my 8 AMD Piledriver cores (considered 4 cores by Steam).

The point does still stand... we do not know how many of those dual cores are simple dual cores, HTed dual cores, or AMD dual modules/quad cores.

As for optimising for 2-cores, I highly doubt it. The recommended is 4 cores and the minimum is 2-cores (probably with HT - some older I-series do not have HT though).

It must be minimum requirements of 4 cores, because the game almost do not work at 2 cores. But there is also no any heavy load even on 2 cores and that is why the game could be optimized for 2 cores. That was my question, if Egosoft has plans to optimize the game for 2-cores.

[Dygaza]

It doesn't actually matter if there isn't always 100% usage even on 2 cores. When action starts happening you will be, and that's what matters.

[bit.hauler]

You know, the most of people still have single core processors or 2-cores. Games which require minimum quad-core processor lose a lot of players.

According to Steam 2 Physical Cores or less account for approx. half of the Steam users and is in gradual decline (about 90% of them have 2 physical cores).

How many of those dual cores have Intel HT (or employ AMD module) technology would be the next point (meaning they are Quad thread/virtual Quad cores/AMD Quad Cores).

Remember the minimum is an i-Series, and the expectation is probably that it is at least a dual core with Hyper Threading.

Hyper Threading is hard to control for programmers and it adds a few percents to overall performance. So we are talking about phisical cores only. When the game moves from dual core system to 3-core's you may see significant increasing in performance. Please see pictures at links below.
Dual core systems (and, as was mentioned, a lot of players) suffer from not acceptible FPS.

http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--w ... _intel.jpg
From here:
http://gamegpu.ru/racing-simulators-/-g ... t-gpu.html

This is not how multithreading works. Having 3 threads on 2 cores may see a drop in performance, but that depends on how cpu heavy each thread is, not on how many threads there are. While sometimes it can be useful to choose to spawn threads based on the number of cores, X Rebirth has 3 main threads that are needed at all times. It could perhaps create worker threads to put on more cores if it found them available, but you are not usually able to optimize for number of cores. You optimize for number of unique operations that benefit from having their own thread. Unless your operations are extremely cpu heavy, having 2 or 3 more threads then you have cores will not cause a significant drop in performance thanks to things like hyperthreading.

And as far as controlling hyperthreading, you don't. Hyperthreading makes it faster for the processor to switch between threads, it is not something the programmer ever has any control over.

As has been mentioned, if you don't meet the minimum requirements, don't complain when the game doesn't work as well for you. Be thankful you can play it.

Cdaragorn is right. As a programmer with experience with multithreaded programming, I can honestly say developers typically design to parallelize as many operations as is reasonable but also minimize multithreading so as to avoid thrashing. There are also data synchronization concerns which often drives the multithreading designs down to use fewer threads as well.

If an application has been designed for parallelism, then they typically do not revisit and optimize for a certain number of cores - they let the hardware work it out and test the application on systems with fewer cores than it was designed for while still meeting minimum system requirements.

As far as the programming, they use synchronization constructs to fork operations where possible, using a thread to do each job. At the OS level, a thread is created for the application when it is requested. At the hardware level, if multiple threads are running then they'll be assigned to individual cores as they become available. If a core isn't available, the threads are typically timesliced across the core(s) that are available. Thread priorities and OS design regarding multitasking play a huge role here as well. If the OS isn't capable of spanning the threads from a single application across multiple cores then your application will have core affinity, no matter what the developers of the application do.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Hyper-Threading provides variable performance gains based on the workload as do AMD Modules.

I have seen a pretty even distribution of work-load across my 8 AMD Piledriver cores (considered 4 cores by Steam).

The point does still stand... we do not know how many of those dual cores are simple dual cores, HTed dual cores, or AMD dual modules/quad cores.

As for optimising for 2-cores, I highly doubt it. The recommended is 4 cores and the minimum is 2-cores (probably with HT - some older I-series do not have HT though).

It must be minimum requirements of 4 cores, because the game almost do not work at 2 cores. But there is also no any heavy load even on 2 cores and that is why the game could be optimized for 2 cores. That was my question, if Egosoft has plans to optimize the game for 2-cores.

The real question is what other factors are in play with the true 2 cores users? Are they also still on 32-bit OS? Do they have enough RAM? What graphics card? Plus please define "almost does not work"?

Even better, if you have the game why not raise the concern along with a dxdiag report in Tech Support as a support query.

[csaba]

I have an i5 duo core on my laptop and I definitively seen better performance since the last 2 patches. When vanilla came out the starting zone was a .ppt slideshow in freeplay, now it is smooth. So I'm pretty sure there was optimization for dual cores.

Also when I bought the game I already knew it wont run perfectly in certain circumstances. I'm planning to buy a desktop sometime next year so I was sure I could play the game (even if not on my current rig) with a little delay when I get my new system. My specs were still above the initial minimum specs given on steam so the performance issues were a little annoying at first but as I said it got better.

The real question is what other factors are in play with the true 2 cores users? Are they also still on 32-bit OS? Do they have enough RAM? What graphics card? Plus please define "almost does not work"?

I have a dual core i5, 8 gig ram, x64 OS and 1 gig graphics card (nVidia gt525m). In the current state I would not say 2 cores should be the minimum requirement it should be 4. You can play on 2 cores easily but there are situations where it just gives up, like the battle at the Albion gate in the plot because all the asteroids in the area already load your cpu full before the ships start to jump in. (Although I haven't tested this part since the last 2 patches.)

[Geek]

My specs were still above the initial minimum specs given on steam so the performance issues were a little annoying at first but as I said it got better.
(...)
I have a dual core i5, 8 gig ram, x64 OS and 1 gig graphics card (nVidia gt525m)

Nope, your GPU is way lower than minimum, which is a desktop AMD 4870 or similar Nividia GPU (ie 450 GT). This translates roughly as the Nvidia 460m for laptops.

So your performance issues are completely expected, and justified.