4790k Affinity mask

[duckbilled 310]

Hi,

 

I'm working on tuning my new rig. Below are the relevant specs:

 

Hardware:

4790k (using the easy oc option in BIOS - running at 4.6 wit turbo boost and hyper-threading enabled)

Asus Maximus VII Formula Mobo

16 GB G.SKILL Trident X DDR3 2400

MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G

Corsair H110 cooler

 

Software:

ASN

UT2

REX4 TD w/Soft Clouds

EZdok

FTX Global

Lots of payware scenery

 

Settings:

4096 Textures

4.5 LOD Radius

UIAutomation core installed

Highmemfix applied

 

FSX seems to be running very smooth. Two nights ago, I had a freeze. I was playing in the menus a little bit, so I installed the UIAutomationcore.dll last night. Last night, I had another freeze about 500nm from TSim's MDPC. I took off from FT's KBOS. I was using ASN weather and cloud cover was pretty heavy.

 

I have been watching temps. Real Temp is showing a max temp of 66 on one core. Other cores are 60-64. This is pretty consistent under load for every flight I have done so far. Idle is about 27-30.

 

I'm starting to look at VAS usage, but I haven't heard about people having an issue with the QSIM 757. I quick flight today showed FSX at just under 3. I do have a lot of scenery in the scenery.cfg and I could disable some areas, but doing so really doesn't play nice with AES.

 

Another thing I tested (and the main point of this thread) was adding

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=xx

 

For my old I7-920, I had it at 14 with HT off. I found this calculator (http://www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk/affinitymask.aspx?SubMenuItem=hardware). It said I should use 84 with HT enabled. Doing so caused a fatal error when loading a flight. Aside from this one attempt, I have not been using a [JOBSCHEDULER] section. I'm wondering what I should do aside from watching VAS.

 

Should I disable HT and go with 14?

Go with 14 and leave HT on?

Something else?

 

Thanks!

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Your choice..  HT off and AF=14 is what I use, but do not use 14 with HT enabled.

[duckbilled 310]

Your choice..  HT off and AF=14 is what I use, but no not use 14 with HT enabled.

 

Thanks Bert

 

With HT on, is 84 the right choice or should I be using something different (or nothing at all)?

 

I'm reluctant to turn off HT because BIOS set the oc and it seems stable with decent temps. 

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

84 is a valid number and would enable three cores, much like 14 does.

 

You can also choose 244 which would put 5 of your 8 logical cores to work..

 

14 = 1110

 

84 =  01010100

 

244 = 11110100

 

Nothing at all is OK too.. again, your choice.

[Charlatan 68]

If you are using the easy overclock thing, I would check what voltage it is pumping through your cpu

[asanal 32]

Bert,

 

I have i7-5960X 8 cores,20Mb Cache OC to 4.GHz w/Turbo Boost. Based on AM Calculator ,set to AM=21844 HT Enabled.

Can you please tell me why  you selected  AM=244.

Thanks

[SirStiggie 63]

I'm running at similar setup but OC'd to 4.8GHz. I played around with HT and found my system significantly more stable with HT disabled at both 4.6GHz and 4.8GHz. Its a little bit of a lottery with the 4790K as I have a couple of friends running it with HT enabled and they are fine. Only difference is they are running custom cooling loops.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Bert,

 

I have i7-5960X 8 cores,20Mb Cache OC to 4.GHz w/Turbo Boost. Based on AM Calculator ,set to AM=21844 HT Enabled.

Can you please tell me why  you selected  AM=244.

Thanks

 

244 is for a quad core with HT.

[RickSinGA 1]

I run almost exactly the the same system as the OP @4.9GHz with a custom water loop.  HT=off and AM=14.  My FSX temps run 55 to 60'c with an ambient of 72'f.  I also use offset voltage which tops my 4790k out at 1.27v.  The M7F has tons of OC'ing options and you might be trying to do to much.  Mine is all auto except XMP#1, Core Ratio=49 and CPU Core Voltage Offset +0.085.

 

I have tried HT=on with AF=84 and most of the others.  I have found my temps are always lower with AF=14 and the system runs smoothly and reliably.  I used to set my DRAM at 1.65v but it seems more reliable set to Auto. (possibly your problem if you set it manually?)

 

Rick S.

 

PS. I would not use the auto overclocker except to get an idea of what your system is capable of, then dial it in manually.

[asanal 32]

Rick,

Thanks.

I will try HT=ON with AF=84, then I will try AF=14.

[Dash8Q4 4]

If you are using the easy overclock thing, I would check what voltage it is pumping through your cpu

listen to this guy!! he has a very valid point. The MB might be pumping unnecessary voltage to your 4.6GHz overclock.

[SteveW 1,792]

I have found my temps are always lower with AF=14 and the system runs smoothly and reliably

With HT=Off, large parts of the CPU assigned to task switching are disabled, less heat. But in the case of OC this results in slightly lower temps and slightly higher overclocks, at the expense of a small improvement to task switching optimisations. Since there's not much task switching going on, it's a reasonably sound idea. AM=14 suits this setup with one core masked from the sim leaves three fast cores.

 

Three cores is the practical minimum when we have plenty of cores.

 

I will try HT=ON with AF=84, then I will try AF=14.

The reason we go for numbers like 84 (01,01,01,00) with HT=on, is because we want to stop a secondary simulation thread loading up on the core with the primary thread, this doesn't happen with HT=Off. Since when HT is on we then have two LPs (logical processors) per core, the binary of these AM numbers puts ones in alternate slots (as seen in brackets), to mask off each second LP of the core. With AM=84 we also mask off the first two LPs, which belong to the first core. This leaves a core free for other processes.

 

AM=244 is interesting because it allows the use of two threads on each of the last two cores (11,11,01,00). The first core (on the right) is masked off for other apps. The second core has one LP masked off so the first FS thread gets that core to itself (amongst the FS threads, it does not stop new processes targeting this core). The third and fourth cores are allowed to load two competing threads each, forcing the core to task switch the two LPs. The synchronizations with the main thread are also doubled. These two cores always look very busy to the O/S and so cores 0 and 1 (first and second) are targeted with processes starting up. Although some have managed to show greater texture throughput with this type of configuration, if the main thread is already maxed out the work done is discarded.

[PieEater 10]

After having done a considerable amount of investigation and testing I use 244 with my i7 (hyperthreading enabled) for the exact reasons SteveW lists.

[RickSinGA 1]

I happened to think about one thing forgot to mention last night Duck.  I was having a stability problem at Offset Mode=+0.085v until I set the load-line Calibration to Level 6 (75%) from Auto if I remember correctly.

 

I agree with what SteveW said too. I would like to add that I found any AM that used HT=on increased my cpu heat by 4 to 5'c and I saw very little difference, if any, in FSX performance.  I have no idea if that is normal but opted for lower temps.

 

Hope this helps, of course your results may vary.

 

Rick S.

[asanal 32]

Steve,

Thanks for your explanation.

IN this case , Do I suppose to change from AM=84 to AM=244 to achieve "greater texture throughput " :unsure: