Multi cores in gaming

[namarino]

Hey guys, I was just wondering what's the benefit of more threads in gaming? (more cores) For example, in the case of the FX series that AMD has, they have a 4,6 and 8 core. Since games really only utilize 4 threads, is there any benefit to having more than that? I have the 8320 in my PC right now. Oh and please try not to bring any of the Intel vs. AMD stuff into this....I'm not interested....haha Thanks guys!

[thekeemo]

most games no. but there are the rare ones that are well optimised

[Oshino Shinobu]

Most of the time, fewer, more powerful cores is better. Only a few games take advantage of 8 cores and even fewer take advantage of HT. 

 

Right now, it's best to go with a 4 core solution from Intel (most commonly, the 4690k) as the 8350 bottlenecks SLI configurations already in certain games, as each core itself is weaker, even if there are more of them. 

[Suffokation]

It is becoming more and more common to see games requiring more than a single thread. Around a year ago, a dual core intel processor made more sense than a multi core FX processor.

However, with the advancement in video games, developers are now leveraging more cores in games.

Such as, Farcry 4, Crysis 3, Call of Duty AW, BF4 and many others.

TLDR;

Stop recommending Pentium guys.

[Manny Calavera]

check this bench http://gamegpu.ru/test-video-cards/igry-2014-goda-protiv-protsessorov-test-gpu.html

[Jedicake]

It is becoming more and more common to see games requiring more than a single thread. Around a year ago, a dual core intel processor made more sense than a multi core FX processor.

However, with the advancement in video games, developers are now leveraging more cores in games.

Such as, Farcry 4, Crysis 3, Call of Duty AW, BF4 and many others.

TLDR;

Stop recommending Pentium guys.

I will continue to recommend the G3258 for a budget build cause it's a good starting point and you can very easily swap it out for an i3/i5/i7 in the future

[D2ultima]

Hey guys, I was just wondering what's the benefit of more threads in gaming? (more cores) For example, in the case of the FX series that AMD has, they have a 4,6 and 8 core. Since games really only utilize 4 threads, is there any benefit to having more than that? I have the 8320 in my PC right now. Oh and please try not to bring any of the Intel vs. AMD stuff into this....I'm not interested....haha Thanks guys!

If a game is optimized well enough, it can split its load properly across multiple cores. This lessens the burden of the CPU's single-threaded performance factor to be very high. Some engines are stuck with one core, some with 2, others 3 (source engine) and some can use 5 (cryengine) and others as much as possible (frostbite).

 

The difference depends on the settings used, whether a GPU or CPU bottleneck is formed, and the FPS targeted. For example, I can FORCE a CPU bottleneck in Crysis 3 on anybody's machine with GTX 770 SLI or higher and any quadcore intel CPU (i7s included) 4GHz or under. There's a certain part of the map in single player I need to go to, and the game must be maxed out. On a hexacore, this wouldn't happen so easily at the same speeds, due to Cryengine 3 taking 5 cores + using hyperthreading. An extra 20% processing power on a CPU is nothing to sneeze at, at all.

 

But in a game like Titanfall for example, an i7 or an i5 or a 12-core XEON will do the same bloody thing, because the engine won't use more power than about 3 cores. It just won't matter.

 

Then you have a game like Terraria. Don't matter if you designed 3000 cores. That game will use core #0 and nothing else for as long as you live. Same with almost every unity-engine game out there. God, that engine sucks ass and I wish people would stop using it for anything more than simple games.

 

Anyway, the reason that people will, without fail, bring up the "AMD vs Intel" thing when you ask about cores is BECAUSE most games still refuse to use more than one or two threads. Some people are a bit fancy. Forcing cores to 100% is a recipe for disaster in heat and TDP consumption, so they will likely split a dual-threaded game across 4 cores. You'll know if no matter what you do under any circumstances you CANNOT force more than 50% load on a quadcore. On a dualcore I all but guarantee you it'll hit 100% on both threads in the same situation where you're topping out at 50% on a quad. Sounds good, right? Well it is. There are absolutely zero downsides to this method. At all. Ever. But no downsides does NOT mean all upsides: the benefit of the quadcore's extra computing power is lost to the game. If the pentium G3258 at 4GHz was to go head to head against an i5-4690K at 4GHz on a game that did that, the FPS results would be the same. Because 50% of an i5-4690K at 4GHz == 100% of a Pentium G3258 at 4GHz.

 

So with that big explanation now, you need to understand something. There's three main factors in if CPUs make a difference in games. 1 - how many cores it has. 2 - what CPU clock speed it has. 3 - what the IPC of the CPU is.

 

Cores you already understand. More cores are better, even if they don't get used in every game. You can use them for other programs on the PC, or streaming, or whatever.

Clock speed, you probably understand. Higher clocks = faster CPU = better benefits. Awesome.

IPC however, is how many Instructions Per Clock the CPU can perform.

Let's say AMD CPUs had an IPC of 10. So a 4GHz quadcore AMD would perform 4 (cores) * 10 (instructions) * 4,000,000,000 (Hz) = 160,000,000,000 commands per second. Nice.

Let's say Intel CPUs had an IPC of 20. So a 4GHz quadcore Intel would perform 4 (cores) * 20 (instructions) * 4,000,000,000 (Hz) = 320,000,000,000 commands per second. Extra nice.

Now, these are not actual IPC numbers. I don't know how to determine that. But real-world performance tells a lot. AMD CPUs have low IPC, and they decided to compensate for it by adding more cores, expecting games and programs to become much more multithreaded in the future... but they didn't. A highly clocked AMD 8-core on an engine using all 8 cores which does NOT use Hyperthreading (negates i7 benefits) will compete with or even beat a lower-clocked current generation intel quadcore in the same situation. The problem is that this almost never exists. Any engine that uses 4 or more cores usually uses hyperthreading too, and thus the i7 benefits tear the AMD chips apart.

 

Also, hyperthreading simply allows the CPU to make better use of already-existing cores. Not all programs make use of it, but when they do, it can see increases anywhere between 10% and 30%, depending on how well a program makes use of the hyperthreads. For games that make use of it, it's only beneficial. For games that do not, there is no downside. It will act as if hyperthreading was not even turned on.

 

So to summarize:

More cores = better for a wide variety of games

More cores =/= better for ALL games

Higher clockspeed = better for all games

Higher IPC = better for all games

Little higher clockspeed + much lower IPC < Little lower clockspeed + much higher IPC (compare 4.8GHz 8350 to 4.4GHz haswell i7 for example)

Little higher clockspeed + little lower IPC = Little lower clockspeed + little higher IPC (compare 4.8GHz sandy bridge i7 to 4.4Ghz Haswell i7, for example)

Hyperthreading = better than none

Hyperthreading =/= always beneficial

[zappian]

Even in new games.

 

Devs are lazy.

 

Solution for lazy devs?

 

Buying an intel cpu. , stronger threads.

 

[GeathX]

Even in new games.

 

Devs are lazy.

 

Solution for lazy devs?

 

Buying an intel cpu. , stronger threads.

 

 

Which is true, but frustratinly continues the cycle of games not going heavily multi-threaded.

[zappian]

Which is true, but frustratinly continues the cycle of games not going heavily multi-threaded.

 

Occam's razor

 

And people are lazy , as a programmer its easy to program everything on a thread.

[namarino]

If a game is optimized well enough, it can split its load properly across multiple cores. This lessens the burden of the CPU's single-threaded performance factor to be very high. Some engines are stuck with one core, some with 2, others 3 (source engine) and some can use 5 (cryengine) and others as much as possible (frostbite).

 

The difference depends on the settings used, whether a GPU or CPU bottleneck is formed, and the FPS targeted. For example, I can FORCE a CPU bottleneck in Crysis 3 on anybody's machine with GTX 770 SLI or higher and any quadcore intel CPU (i7s included) 4GHz or under. There's a certain part of the map in single player I need to go to, and the game must be maxed out. On a hexacore, this wouldn't happen so easily at the same speeds, due to Cryengine 3 taking 5 cores + using hyperthreading. An extra 20% processing power on a CPU is nothing to sneeze at, at all.

 

But in a game like Titanfall for example, an i7 or an i5 or a 12-core XEON will do the same bloody thing, because the engine won't use more power than about 3 cores. It just won't matter.

 

Then you have a game like Terraria. Don't matter if you designed 3000 cores. That game will use core #0 and nothing else for as long as you live. Same with almost every unity-engine game out there. God, that engine sucks ass and I wish people would stop using it for anything more than simple games.

 

Anyway, the reason that people will, without fail, bring up the "AMD vs Intel" thing when you ask about cores is BECAUSE most games still refuse to use more than one or two threads. Some people are a bit fancy. Forcing cores to 100% is a recipe for disaster in heat and TDP consumption, so they will likely split a dual-threaded game across 4 cores. You'll know if no matter what you do under any circumstances you CANNOT force more than 50% load on a quadcore. On a dualcore I all but guarantee you it'll hit 100% on both threads in the same situation where you're topping out at 50% on a quad. Sounds good, right? Well it is. There are absolutely zero downsides to this method. At all. Ever. But no downsides does NOT mean all upsides: the benefit of the quadcore's extra computing power is lost to the game. If the pentium G3258 at 4GHz was to go head to head against an i5-4690K at 4GHz on a game that did that, the FPS results would be the same. Because 50% of an i5-4690K at 4GHz == 100% of a Pentium G3258 at 4GHz.

 

So with that big explanation now, you need to understand something. There's three main factors in if CPUs make a difference in games. 1 - how many cores it has. 2 - what CPU clock speed it has. 3 - what the IPC of the CPU is.

 

Cores you already understand. More cores are better, even if they don't get used in every game. You can use them for other programs on the PC, or streaming, or whatever.

Clock speed, you probably understand. Higher clocks = faster CPU = better benefits. Awesome.

IPC however, is how many Instructions Per Clock the CPU can perform.

Let's say AMD CPUs had an IPC of 10. So a 4GHz quadcore AMD would perform 4 (cores) * 10 (instructions) * 4,000,000,000 (Hz) = 160,000,000,000 commands. Nice.

Let's say Intel CPUs had an IPC of 20. So a 4GHz quadcore Intel would perform 4 (cores) * 20 (instructions) * 4,000,000,000 (Hz) = 320,000,000,000 commands. Extra nice.

Now, these are not actual IPC numbers. I don't know how to determine that. But real-world performance tells a lot. AMD CPUs have low IPC, and they decided to compensate for it by adding more cores, expecting games and programs to become much more multithreaded in the future... but they didn't. A highly clocked AMD 8-core on an engine using all 8 cores which does NOT use Hyperthreading (negates i7 benefits) will compete with or even beat a lower-clocked current generation intel quadcore in the same situation. The problem is that this almost never exists. Any engine that uses 4 or more cores usually uses hyperthreading too, and thus the i7 benefits tear the AMD chips apart.

 

Also, hyperthreading simply allows the CPU to make better use of already-existing cores. Not all programs make use of it, but when they do, it can see increases anywhere between 10% and 30%, depending on how well a program makes use of the hyperthreads. For games that make use of it, it's only beneficial. For games that do not, there is no downside. It will act as if hyperthreading was not even turned on.

 

So to summarize:

More cores = better for a wide variety of games

More cores =/= better for ALL games

Higher clockspeed = better for all games

Higher IPC = better for all games

Little higher clockspeed + much lower IPC < Little lower clockspeed + much higher IPC (compare 4.8GHz 8350 to 4.4GHz haswell i7 for example)

Little higher clockspeed + little lower IPC = Little lower clockspeed + little higher IPC (compare 4.8GHz sandy bridge i7 to 4.4Ghz Haswell i7, for example)

Hyperthreading = better than none

Hyperthreading =/= always beneficial

What a great answer! Thanks so much that really helped a lot. I built my PC just kinda for fun. I don't really do a lot of gaming on PC, I'm mainly a console guy. I went with the 8320 because it had pretty good value and it was good for what I was going to be using it for. And I figured that it might actually get better over time if games start utilizing more threads. A lot of people were telling me that the i5 would have been better value, and they're probably right, but I got a really good deal on the AMD chip and motherboard. Anyway, just thought I'd share. haha thanks a lot man, I really do appreciate it!

[Teemo4Life]

If a game is optimized well enough, it can split its load properly across multiple cores. This lessens the burden of the CPU's single-threaded performance factor to be very high. Some engines are stuck with one core, some with 2, others 3 (source engine) and some can use 5 (cryengine) and others as much as possible (frostbite).

 

The difference depends on the settings used, whether a GPU or CPU bottleneck is formed, and the FPS targeted. For example, I can FORCE a CPU bottleneck in Crysis 3 on anybody's machine with GTX 770 SLI or higher and any quadcore intel CPU (i7s included) 4GHz or under. There's a certain part of the map in single player I need to go to, and the game must be maxed out. On a hexacore, this wouldn't happen so easily at the same speeds, due to Cryengine 3 taking 5 cores + using hyperthreading. An extra 20% processing power on a CPU is nothing to sneeze at, at all.

 

But in a game like Titanfall for example, an i7 or an i5 or a 12-core XEON will do the same bloody thing, because the engine won't use more power than about 3 cores. It just won't matter.

 

Then you have a game like Terraria. Don't matter if you designed 3000 cores. That game will use core #0 and nothing else for as long as you live. Same with almost every unity-engine game out there. God, that engine sucks ass and I wish people would stop using it for anything more than simple games.

 

Anyway, the reason that people will, without fail, bring up the "AMD vs Intel" thing when you ask about cores is BECAUSE most games still refuse to use more than one or two threads. Some people are a bit fancy. Forcing cores to 100% is a recipe for disaster in heat and TDP consumption, so they will likely split a dual-threaded game across 4 cores. You'll know if no matter what you do under any circumstances you CANNOT force more than 50% load on a quadcore. On a dualcore I all but guarantee you it'll hit 100% on both threads in the same situation where you're topping out at 50% on a quad. Sounds good, right? Well it is. There are absolutely zero downsides to this method. At all. Ever. But no downsides does NOT mean all upsides: the benefit of the quadcore's extra computing power is lost to the game. If the pentium G3258 at 4GHz was to go head to head against an i5-4690K at 4GHz on a game that did that, the FPS results would be the same. Because 50% of an i5-4690K at 4GHz == 100% of a Pentium G3258 at 4GHz.

 

So with that big explanation now, you need to understand something. There's three main factors in if CPUs make a difference in games. 1 - how many cores it has. 2 - what CPU clock speed it has. 3 - what the IPC of the CPU is.

 

Cores you already understand. More cores are better, even if they don't get used in every game. You can use them for other programs on the PC, or streaming, or whatever.

Clock speed, you probably understand. Higher clocks = faster CPU = better benefits. Awesome.

IPC however, is how many Instructions Per Clock the CPU can perform.

Let's say AMD CPUs had an IPC of 10. So a 4GHz quadcore AMD would perform 4 (cores) * 10 (instructions) * 4,000,000,000 (Hz) = 160,000,000,000 commands. Nice.

Let's say Intel CPUs had an IPC of 20. So a 4GHz quadcore Intel would perform 4 (cores) * 20 (instructions) * 4,000,000,000 (Hz) = 320,000,000,000 commands. Extra nice.

Now, these are not actual IPC numbers. I don't know how to determine that. But real-world performance tells a lot. AMD CPUs have low IPC, and they decided to compensate for it by adding more cores, expecting games and programs to become much more multithreaded in the future... but they didn't. A highly clocked AMD 8-core on an engine using all 8 cores which does NOT use Hyperthreading (negates i7 benefits) will compete with or even beat a lower-clocked current generation intel quadcore in the same situation. The problem is that this almost never exists. Any engine that uses 4 or more cores usually uses hyperthreading too, and thus the i7 benefits tear the AMD chips apart.

 

Also, hyperthreading simply allows the CPU to make better use of already-existing cores. Not all programs make use of it, but when they do, it can see increases anywhere between 10% and 30%, depending on how well a program makes use of the hyperthreads. For games that make use of it, it's only beneficial. For games that do not, there is no downside. It will act as if hyperthreading was not even turned on.

 

So to summarize:

More cores = better for a wide variety of games

More cores =/= better for ALL games

Higher clockspeed = better for all games

Higher IPC = better for all games

Little higher clockspeed + much lower IPC < Little lower clockspeed + much higher IPC (compare 4.8GHz 8350 to 4.4GHz haswell i7 for example)

Little higher clockspeed + little lower IPC = Little lower clockspeed + little higher IPC (compare 4.8GHz sandy bridge i7 to 4.4Ghz Haswell i7, for example)

Hyperthreading = better than none

Hyperthreading =/= always beneficial

IM NOT READIN THAT, THIS ISNT HSC

[D2ultima]

IM NOT READIN THAT, THIS ISNT HSC

Then don't ask the question.

[NeatSquidYT]

IM NOT READIN THAT, THIS ISNT HSC

Sort of against CoC

[Dezz]

@D2ultima

I'm not really familiar with game developing (although i would like to), but how difficult it is for developers to make the game use more threads?

Is it really so hard / time demanding that it's not worth doing it?

[D2ultima]

@D2ultima

I'm not really familiar with game developing (although i would like to), but how difficult it is for developers to make the game use more threads?

Is it really so hard / time demanding that it's not worth doing it?

Unfortunately I'm not a game dev, so I could not say with certainty. I can say it's not difficult if all hardware is the same: I.E. if everyone is going to have a quadcore, it's easy to code for a quadcore. If devs would say "minimum required: quadcore" then actually code for a quadcore, things might be different. But even with quadcores as minimum reqs, games seem to be single-thread-heavy for reasons unknown. It's stupid, because the consoles have EXTREMELY WEAK AMD APU systems running under 2GHz, so single-thread-heavy titles are nonexistent there. They'd get absolutely nowhere if they did that for the consoles, so I don't get why when quadcores are minimum reqs on PC that they screw up so bad.

 

The difficulty comes when your min reqs are a dual core and you want to also load balance an 8 core if someone has it. That even sounds difficult in theory. You'd likely have to code the game to recognize multiple cores and distribute load as necessary based on the number of cores a user has available. And that could be pretty difficult I would assume. Lots of redundancy going from 2 cores to 8 cores.