Albion Prelude: Multi Core support?

[Sehnsucht1985]

Excited as hell for this game, but I really hope it'll have support for more than one cpu core. Because even with my i7 930 clocked to 4,1 ghz, my TC game (700+ hours) still has low fps in several areas. It's not the gfx card, because it usually sits at around 10-30% activity. And the hard drive is a VelociRaptor 600.

Pretty please with sugar on top; multi-core support!!

Edit: Yes I did search the interwebs for any answers, found nothing.

[CBJ]

Moved from Tech Support.

I'm afraid multi-threading is not something you can just patch into an existing game engine, such as the one shared by X3TC and X3AP. So like X3TC, X3AP does not use multiple cores but does benefit somewhat from there being multiple cores present because they can be used by drivers and other software components running on the PC.

[Sehnsucht1985]

Sigh... Alright.

X Rebirth will have it though?

[Sorkvild]

Yes.

[David Howland]

Hi Sehnsucht1985,
Yes what you have to understand is, RB. is a totally new game engine so has been designed around modern CPUs. The X3 game engine was designed a decade ago before multi cores were common.
AP. was produced and put onto the antiquated engine to bribe Steam objectors to put Steam on their computers for the RB launch. Note here, anyone with the Disk Superbox got AP as a freebie. It has worked too, some notable Steam Exclusive objectors have opened the requisite account to get this freebie, even one or two that claimed not to have an internet connection that could support Steam downloads, have managed a steam account.
It just goes to show, addiction can trump even ethical objection!

Beware, as I am a lone voice in the wilderness, the Jack Boots could be on their way!

[Alan Phipps]

David, you only appear as a lone voice when you are also incorrectly spamming other topic threads with your now already well-known opinions; a behaviour that you appear to be on a mission to collect warnings about. Further, I have never considered these forums as a wilderness of members' opinions, it is just that most people here post theirs in the correct forums and threads.

Since you also helped the OP with some actually relevant info in your post the Jack Boots are passing by - this time.

[Sehnsucht1985]

Hi Sehnsucht1985,
Yes what you have to understand is, RB. is a totally new game engine so has been designed around modern CPUs. The X3 game engine was designed a decade ago before multi cores were common.
*snip*

Aye, I know Rebirth uses a new engine. But I wanted to make sure. As for the X3 engine; well one can always hope. I do expect some optimization tweaks though, that's the least they can do considering you need a NASA computer to operate in sectors with 150+ factories (without the tubeless mod).

Nonetheless, I'm super excited for this Thursday and will be getting the game as soon as it unlocks.

[David Howland]

You and I both Secnsucht1985,
Believe me, I would love to see ES bring out a Retro X3 or X4 (maybe X3 and AP combined) with an RB type engine able to use modern tech. that does not require CPU speeds that make it a fire hazard. I have raised this before and although forum members like the idea they do not hold out much hope.
As previous posts stated this is not something tweeking can sort, as building a new engine into an old game is even more difficult than building a new game.
I have to, unfortunately, squash your hopes of even tweeks on X3, during the initial announcement, in January of RB it was stated there would be no further patches officially released for X3. This goes against all ES past policy, as patches for old games has often been the making of them, so this must have been the result of some serious revision within the company!
I am truly sorry if this is bad news to you, we must all face realities in these harsher times. We can but hope, nay pray, that ES know what they are doing or come to their senses!
In the meantime lets all wish ES success with their new games and a prosperous new year!

[aka1nas]

You and I both Secnsucht1985,
Believe me, I would love to see ES bring out a Retro X3 or X4 (maybe X3 and AP combined) with an RB type engine able to use modern tech. that does not require CPU speeds that make it a fire hazard. I have raised this before and although forum members like the idea they do not hold out much hope.
As previous posts stated this is not something tweeking can sort, as building a new engine into an old game is even more difficult building a new game.
I have to unfortunately, squash your hopes of even tweeks on X3, during the initial announcement, in January of RB it was stated there would be no further patches officially released for X3. This goes against all ES past policy, as patches for old games has often been the making of them, so this must have been the result of some serious revision within the company!
I am truly sorry if this is bad news to you, we must all face realities in these harsher times. We can but hope, nay pray, that ES know what they are doing or come to their senses!
In the meantime lets all wish ES success with their new games and a prosperous new year!

TC received free updates for over 2 years after launch, not sure how you can say they made any major company policy changes.

[Dank7430]

You and I both Secnsucht1985,
Believe me, I would love to see ES bring out a Retro X3 or X4 (maybe X3 and AP combined) with an RB type engine able to use modern tech. that does not require CPU speeds that make it a fire hazard. I have raised this before and although forum members like the idea they do not hold out much hope.
As previous posts stated this is not something tweeking can sort, as building a new engine into an old game is even more difficult building a new game.
I have to unfortunately, squash your hopes of even tweeks on X3, during the initial announcement, in January of RB it was stated there would be no further patches officially released for X3. This goes against all ES past policy, as patches for old games has often been the making of them, so this must have been the result of some serious revision within the company!
I am truly sorry if this is bad news to you, we must all face realities in these harsher times. We can but hope, nay pray, that ES know what they are doing or come to their senses!
In the meantime lets all wish ES success with their new games and a prosperous new year!

TC received free updates for over 2 years after launch, not sure how you can say they made any major company policy changes.

I actually thought this was one of Davids more positive posts

[David Howland]

Thank you for that Dank7430,
I do like to hit a lighter note on the lead up to the festive season, ding dong merrily on high, as they say or sing!

[TSM]

Waffled

TC received free updates for over 2 years after launch, not sure how you can say they made any major company policy changes.

Yep they even patched XBTF for superbox, seems Mr Howland likes to fail in the facts dept

Find a dev who would be willing to redo their entire engine for mc support.

[gbjbaanb]

Find a dev who would be willing to redo their entire engine for mc support.

It's not so difficult to do this for some parts, for example, you could spin off a thread that run permanently, and pass sound instructions to it to run instead of on the main thread. That is simple to implement as it barely affects the way the game engine works, yet would run all sound on a 2nd core. I'm not sure how beneficial this would be though.

It might be possible to run things like AI calculations on another thread in the same way, but generally that work becomes more difficult to bring the results back to the main thread when needed. Ultimately, its not worth the effort to MT the whole thing, but there's no reason why you can't hit the really low-hanging fruit.

[rrfarmer]

They updated the engine for this release. I don't know if it supports multiple cores, but where X3TC 3.1.1 ran at 60fps, it now runs at about 150fps or more.
That's all I can say. Just stop complaining about something you don't' know about. Egosoft really does know what they are doing.

[Alan Phipps]

@ gbjbaanb: A good OS using a multi-thread cpu already should transfer the sound etc drivers and OS services support to less-occupied threads than the one running a busy single-thread .exe. It should balance and occasionally reallocate cores and the relative thread loads as far as it can to average out core stress and temperature histories. This is why it is not always a good idea to fix core/thread affinities.

I think TSM's point was more the difficulty of finding an existing commercial dev with the necessary Intellectual Property Rights who would do any reprogramming on a relatively elderly game engine and with no prospect of a suitable commercial return.

Anyway, as stated many times, multithreading is not at all likely to happen with the X3 engine.

@ rrfarmer: I think that is mainly the result of starting a new game. It is pretty much the same engine as before but probably seeing reduced scripts and jobs compared to a 'mature' X3TC gamesave. Sure some tweaks will have been done, but not a full re-engine.

[Nanook]

Hi Sehnsucht1985,
Yes what you have to understand is, RB. is a totally new game engine so has been designed around modern CPUs. The X3 game engine was designed a decade ago before multi cores were common.
*snip*

Aye, I know Rebirth uses a new engine. But I wanted to make sure. As for the X3 engine; well one can always hope. I do expect some optimization tweaks though, that's the least they can do considering you need a NASA computer to operate in sectors with 150+ factories (without the tubeless mod).....

Seeing as the game is entirely open-ended in this regard, if they did manage to 'tweak' it enough to allow 150+ factories in a sector with a decent framerate, you can be sure that someone would then add even more factories, to the point where they again start complaining about framerates. So where does it all end?

I think the issue is the lack of self-control on the part of some players, overbuilding in some sectors just because they can. There's no game limit to the number of factories a player can add, but there is a limit on computer power. Players simply need to recognize this fact and quit expecting more and more optimization tweaks just because they've reached the limit of their computer's power.

[rrfarmer]

@nanook

I couldn't have put it better!

What always bothers me is that I never see complaints on forums for other games like Battlefield 3 or similar modern graphics intense games. Those people just do what's normal and go get a decent computer.

I know I've said this before, but if you can't afford $1k for gaming computer then maybe you should save / look into a cheaper hobby, like an xbox, or tennis. lol

Sorry for the small rant.

[Spectre01]

btw, is it me? Or the whole X3 engine doesn't use gfx card that much? I just started using ATT and its ingame overlay. I've noticed that most of the time, my GPU load sits at 0%, or no more than 25%. And there's not much FPS improvement when I upgraded my card from 4770 to 6870.

Just hope they won't make XR be a CPU only engine.

[TSM]

I think TSM's point was more the difficulty of finding an existing commercial dev with the necessary Intellectual Property Rights who would do any reprogramming on a relatively elderly game engine and with no prospect of a suitable commercial return.

Yes that was my point you put it better though.

Seeing as the game is entirely open-ended in this regard, if they did manage to 'tweak' it enough to allow 150+ factories in a sector with a decent framerate, you can be sure that someone would then add even more factories, to the point where they again start complaining about framerates. So where does it all end?

I think the issue is the lack of self-control on the part of some players, overbuilding in some sectors just because they can. There's no game limit to the number of factories a player can add, but there is a limit on computer power. Players simply need to recognize this fact and quit expecting more and more optimization tweaks just because they've reached the limit of their computer's power.

Totally Agree.

[Cycrow]

btw, is it me? Or the whole X3 engine doesn't use gfx card that much? I just started using ATT and its ingame overlay. I've noticed that most of the time, my GPU load sits at 0%, or no more than 25%. And there's not much FPS improvement when I upgraded my card from 4770 to 6870.

Just hope they won't make XR be a CPU only engine.

the reason the X games use more CPU is because it has a whole universe to process continously.

having high cpu load is unavoidable with this type of game.

most games simply only process the information that is in view of the player