March 10, 201016 yr I've been watching the process monitor a bit during flight, mainly to find out when my memoryusage exceeds 2GB, so I know if I got anything out of my recent 2 GB to 4 GB memory upgrade :(But now I've noticed that when I fly with the fps limiter set at 30 and FSX set at unlimited fps, much of the time CPU0 is running at low utilization and CPU1/2/3 kick in whenever there is scenery to be loaded.So far, so good. But here is the surprising thing: If I set fps to 24 in FSX, CPU0 goes to 100% utilizationand stays there. My question: What is FSX doing with CPU0 to keep it at 100%?I'm now flying with 24 fps instead of 30 fps and yet, I'm running this CPU at full speed, heating up my office..Are these just wasted CPU cycles - or is FSX doing something useful in the background?My specs: [email protected] - 4 GB DDR2 800MHz RAM - Win XP 32 - 9600GT 512MB Bert
March 10, 201016 yr Very good question I saw this too, just recently trying FSX to the max.. but dont have an answer.. what is going on ?
March 10, 201016 yr i only have a dual core. 1 runs 100 all the time and the other between 10 & 20 percent. I have been wanting to know also 'whats going on'! Is this normal?
March 11, 201016 yr Author i only have a dual core. 1 runs 100 all the time and the other between 10 & 20 percent. I have been wanting to know also 'whats going on'! Is this normal?This seems to be normal FSX behavior. I wonder if FSX was written in an age where using allthe cycles the CPU had to offer, whether needed or not, made just plain common sense...FS9 behaves exactly the same way on my system.Only when using Fps Limiter, does the CPU get de-coupled from the FSX application.Still wondering what exactly FSX is doing with the unused cycles... Anyone?? Bert
March 11, 201016 yr Still wondering what exactly FSX is doing with the unused cycles... Anyone??It is loading terrain in the background, helping avoid blurries, you can test this by yourself using the FFTF tweak and using very low and HIGH values and see how CPU0 utilization changes according to this, when you 'lock' FSX frames, it goes to 100%, which DOESN"T MEAN the CPU is saturated, it only means it is been fully utilized in a efficient manner, you can check the process queue length in perfmon and confirm the 100% usage is not saturation at all.
March 11, 201016 yr Author It is loading terrain in the background, helping avoid blurries, you can test this by yourself using the FFTF tweak and using very low and HIGH values and see how CPU0 utilization changes according to this, when you 'lock' FSX frames, it goes to 100%, which DOESN"T MEAN the CPU is saturated, it only means it is been fully utilized in a efficient manner, you can check the process queue length in perfmon and confirm the 100% usage is not saturation at all.Not sure I follow you on this... If I go to a sparse environment where there is not much scenery to load and observe the process monitor,I see low utilization on Core0 and zero utilization on Core1/2/3 much of the time. All of this with FSX set to unlimited fps and the FPS Limiter active at 30.If I then change the FSX setting to locked fps at 24, the Core0 utilization goes to 100% and stays there. Core 1/2/3 remain at zero.There is no terrain to be loaded and yet it uses all of Core0 cycles... Bert
March 11, 201016 yr There is no terrain to be loaded and yet it uses all of Core0 cycles...Correct, you are not suppose to 'see it' the terrain system meaning (textures, mesh) not autogen, buildings. thats why I suggested you play with FFTF and see for yourself the impact it has on CPU0, the fiber frame per fraction setting changes the (CPU allocated time) to scenery loading. this fiber runs on CPU0, so its irrelevant what you see on CPU1The short answer to your question is: those are not 'WASTED' cycles, FSX is just making sure its using all available CPU horse power, just test the FFTF and see it yourself.
March 11, 201016 yr Author The short answer to your question is: those are not 'WASTED' cycles, FSX is just making sure its using all available CPU horse powerWell, maybe we should just leave it at that.... I know that we've been told that locking the frame rates allows FSX to spend more cycles on terrain etcand that all makes sense, until there is no more terrain to load. I guess I prefer in the majority of cases to reclaim part of my available horse power, using the FPS Limiter application, although on a dreary day in the Pacific North West I could use all the heat my CPU is capable of producing to keep me warm :( Bert
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