High CPU usage when playing older games

[RealETH]

Hey everyone,

 

A few months ago I upgraded my PC from the 9900K to the 13700KF, and so far there's been no bumps on the ride. But two days ago I tried to revisit Far Cry 4 and noticed that my framerate was low, while GPU (2080ti) usage was hanging at around 40%. Though when I checked the advanced overlay I saw that CPU usage was at 25%. If I'm not mistaken Far Cry 4 is one of those titles that only takes 4 cores since it came out before Ryzen made multi-core CPU's mainstream. Now I already tried putting the settings on their lowest and this didn't do much. I also tried disabling the E-cores on my CPU, also didn't do much... And I noticed a similar thing going on with Borderlands 2 as well. Do any of you guys have a similar issue when playing older games? I did not have this problem when I was on my 9900K, but I find it hard to believe that my change in CPU caused this...

[Montana One-Six]

What exactly is the issue with the CPU? The 13700K has 8P and 8E cores. So if the game uses 25% of your CPU it uses 4 cores and you said yourself the game takes up 4 cores. 

21 hours ago, RealETH said:

If I'm not mistaken Far Cry 4 is one of those titles that only takes 4 cores

So I don't see an issue here.

 

21 hours ago, RealETH said:

my framerate was low, while GPU (2080ti) usage was hanging at around 40%.

What Resolution? What settings? How low is low? If you want help provide as much information as possible.

 

21 hours ago, RealETH said:

Now I already tried putting the settings on their lowest and this didn't do much.

Usually it is a bad idea to use low settings on old games when using a PC like yours. Depending on the resolution of course but generally you want to put more work onto the GPU and by lowering settings you do the opposite.

 

21 hours ago, RealETH said:

I also tried disabling the E-cores on my CPU, also didn't do much...

Because the E cores aren't used for gaming if everything works how it should. So you probably will not see any positive change if anything it could be a negative change depending on the amount on background processes that now need to be handled by the p cores.

[Mark Kaine]

On 3/15/2023 at 11:37 PM, RealETH said:

Do any of you guys have a similar issue when playing older games

honestly? uh, maybe. i got tra running on 2 cores, 50% each, 600fps, so for me this isnt really an issue, just "normal". i think something else is probably up with your system,  better cpu shouldn't result in issues (unclear what even are the issues) ,  unless there's some weird settings or whatever- which we have no way to tell.

 

 

On 3/15/2023 at 11:37 PM, RealETH said:

I saw that CPU usage was at 25%.

how would it be more if it doesn't use all cores,  i dont see how overall usage matters. 

 

 

 

On 3/15/2023 at 11:37 PM, RealETH said:

noticed that my framerate was low,

referenced to what?

[NekoBubbles]

On 3/15/2023 at 5:37 PM, RealETH said:

Hey everyone,

 

A few months ago I upgraded my PC from the 9900K to the 13700KF, and so far there's been no bumps on the ride. But two days ago I tried to revisit Far Cry 4 and noticed that my framerate was low, while GPU (2080ti) usage was hanging at around 40%. Though when I checked the advanced overlay I saw that CPU usage was at 25%. If I'm not mistaken Far Cry 4 is one of those titles that only takes 4 cores since it came out before Ryzen made multi-core CPU's mainstream. Now I already tried putting the settings on their lowest and this didn't do much. I also tried disabling the E-cores on my CPU, also didn't do much... And I noticed a similar thing going on with Borderlands 2 as well. Do any of you guys have a similar issue when playing older games? I did not have this problem when I was on my 9900K, but I find it hard to believe that my change in CPU caused this...

Well lets break this down.

 

A. Its a old game so its based on OLD hardware that used LESS to make MORE. So clearly a newer CPU is gonna run faster and use less.As to the 25% useage most games run SINGLE COR'd. ESPECIALLY THE OLD GAMES. Why? cause old games aren't that computing intensive. You aren't LOADING the whole open world but rather segments.That load and unload as you hit "triggers" to conveniently load the space that you are currently in.

 

B. Lower graphical settings is offloading the stress of loading onto the CPU meaning your GPU isn't gonna have to work nearly as hard hence the useage is 40%. 

C. E cores are another way of saying efficiency cores. Less energy and less power. (Kinda why gamers avoid them) They are made with sustainability in mind and not gaming. 

Hence why most PC gamers don't really talk about it but what you want are P cores or processing core, these are cores in a cpu that are designed for ironically processing. (These use more power but utilize and initialize games more aggressively.

 

What does C. mean then well you basically bought a weaker cpu.  with a higher core count from what I'm seeing the 13700KF is basically a daily driver hybrid CPU meant for "workstations" not gaming. 

More modern newer games will be able to take advantage of the E cores. 

But with older games chances are the e cores are just redundant cores that don't know what to do as they aren't being queried to compute. Intel e cores are a relatively new tech as in they are LITERALLY like 1.75 years old O...O. So most old games probably don't know what to do with the ecores. 50% of your CPU never existed when old games existed. As such there isn't code for half the CPU to read and compute. (A 2021 CPU that 8 Pcore and 8 Ecore, but ecores never existed for games pre 2021 hence pre 2021 games probably will only at most get to 50% utilization. 

I was a professional QA tester that worked with multiple builds. And play multiple games and this is kinda the secret sauce that few know cause not many got to mess around with so much hardware. 

BUT newer games like Dead Space 2020 and Cyberpunk 2077 and open world intensive games that are clearly multicore based are gonna love the 13700KF. 

[Montana One-Six]

9 hours ago, NekoBubbles said:

What does C. mean then well you basically bought a weaker cpu.  with a higher core count from what I'm seeing the 13700KF is basically a daily driver hybrid CPU meant for "workstations" not gaming. 

More modern newer games will be able to take advantage of the E cores. 

But with older games chances are the e cores are just redundant cores that don't know what to do as they aren't being queried to compute. Intel e cores are a relatively new tech as in they are LITERALLY like 1.75 years old O...O. So most old games probably don't know what to do with the ecores. 50% of your CPU never existed when old games existed. As such there isn't code for half the CPU to read and compute. (A 2021 CPU that 8 Pcore and 8 Ecore, but ecores never existed for games pre 2021 hence pre 2021 games probably will only at most get to 50% utilization. 

No. The 13700K(F) is one of the fastest gaming CPUs right now.

 

Also games don't choose which cores they want the OS kernel scheduler assigns cores to programs according to their needs. Windows updated that scheduler in cooperation with Intel to take advantage of these E and P cores so that they can both be used efficiently. Which means it doesn't matter how old the game is because the game has nothing to do with core assignment.

The main advantage of E cores is low power consumption for things that don't need a lot of compute like RGB lighting stuff or things like that. Which means the P cores aren't constantly in use by things that don't need all that power and are usually only used for compute heavy tasks like games.

[NekoBubbles]

14 hours ago, Montana One-Six said:

No. The 13700K(F) is one of the fastest gaming CPUs right now.

 

Also games don't choose which cores they want the OS kernel scheduler assigns cores to programs according to their needs. Windows updated that scheduler in cooperation with Intel to take advantage of these E and P cores so that they can both be used efficiently. Which means it doesn't matter how old the game is because the game has nothing to do with core assignment.

The main advantage of E cores is low power consumption for things that don't need a lot of compute like RGB lighting stuff or things like that. Which means the P cores aren't constantly in use by things that don't need all that power and are usually only used for compute heavy tasks like games.

As I SAID IN THE END OF MY COMMENT its great for new gen games but older games were not developed with e cores in mind hence older games rely on pcores cause thats the infrastructure they were developed on. 

You could be running a SUPER COMPUTER and if the software doesn't have kernels or the commands to use those cores it will either under utilize them or not use them at all.