FSX-MS affinitymask i7 7700k

[SteveW 1,792]

What i see in general is in some way shape or form an adherence to the plan is lost since we can't easily juggle all the combinations and theory in our head. In Dane's case no amount of AM's on three cores are going to oust a big airport on four cores so all the AM tests are coming out more or less the same yielding the No AM is best result. Casual readers might see that and assume they need no AM on their 8 core and so it goes on.

The main thing is that if we have few cores (like 4-6) we must run our addon exe apps on the same cores as the sim so we must put them at the back where the sim processes take seconds to complete adding a few ms there won't hurt like it will in the game loop on the first LP. With more cores (8+) we must partition it so we have the sim on one bunch and the other stuff on the remaining cores.

 

On Danes AM's 116 and 244 give the highest fps simply because they dedicate a core to the main task of the sim. The No AM (AM=255 on four no HT) and 252 each force the first two main sim processes to share a core.

116=01,11,01,00 - third LP in from the right is main sim process on an unshared core, core zero free

244=11,11,01,00 - again third LP in from the right is main sim process on an unshared core, core zero free

252=11,11,11,00 - now we are forcing those two main processes to share the second core in from the right

255=11,11,11,11- now we are forcing those two main processes to share the first core from the right (core zero) and no free core for addon exe apps so we should put them on 10,10,00,00 two LPs of the last two cores on the left

 

Hopefully that helps.

Edited March 14, 2018 by SteveW
said left meant right

[SteveW 1,792]

3 hours ago, Gabe777 said:

...I am still experimenting with the Flight1 GTN gauge. 

This GTN gauge is in 2 chunks: the Flight1 gauge itself, which has a config app that allows the user to set its affinity, AND the actual Garmin Trainer.

All apps like this will eventually offer support to handle their own affinity. The GTN offers the opportunity to set it to a particular LP so you should set it to avoid the LP with the first main sim process.

 

Take care with looking at task manager and looking at strings of ones and zeros in AMs. I was typing left instead of right, done it before. Looking at task manager it shows LP zero at top left, the AM string of digits is reversed and LP zero is on the far right the least significant bit.

 

Edited March 14, 2018 by SteveW

[Dane Watson 38]

1 hour ago, SteveW said:

Hi Dane,

Have you got HT enabled and four cores?

In that case, looking at your chosen AMs - they appear to be more aligned with FSX/P3Dv3 rather than P3Dv4 so P3Dv4 users take note that's slightly different. Now they all show use of only three cores. No AM uses four cores and will naturally load big texture airports faster. Default FSX and a heavy addon exe on core zero are more suited to those AMs. Your chance to improve fps might slow down the loading of those big textures, maybe not - in that case I would try 253 which uses four cores but dedicates the first whole core to one sim process (the main one), making sure to load addon exe apps on two LPs of the last two cores. 

 

 

 

Hi Steve,

Yes I have HT enabled and four cores.

Later today I will test out your suggestions. Thank you Steve for your replies to not only me but all who are looking for help especially in such a confusing topic and wanting to try to improve our sim experiences - you are brilliant.

Regards, Dane

[Dane Watson 38]

1 hour ago, SteveW said:

What i see in general is in some way shape or form an adherence to the plan is lost since we can't easily juggle all the combinations and theory in our head. In Dane's case no amount of AM's on three cores are going to oust a big airport on four cores so all the AM tests are coming out more or less the same yielding the No AM is best result. Casual readers might see that and assume they need no AM on their 8 core and so it goes on.

The main thing is that if we have few cores (like 4-6) we must run our addon exe apps on the same cores as the sim so we must put them at the back where the sim processes take seconds to complete adding a few ms there won't hurt like it will in the game loop on the first LP. With more cores (8+) we must partition it so we have the sim on one bunch and the other stuff on the remaining cores.

 

On Danes AM's 116 and 244 give the highest fps simply because they dedicate a core to the main task of the sim. The No AM (AM=255 on four no HT) and 252 each force the first two main sim processes to share a core.

116=01,11,01,00 - third LP in from the right is main sim process on an unshared core, core zero free

244=11,11,01,00 - again third LP in from the right is main sim process on an unshared core, core zero free

252=11,11,11,00 - now we are forcing those two main processes to share the second core in from the right

255=11,11,11,11- now we are forcing those two main processes to share the first core from the right (core zero) and no free core for addon exe apps so we should put them on 10,10,00,00 two LPs of the last two cores on the left

 

Hopefully that helps.

Slowly but surely I am beginning to understand this mysterious process of Affinity Mask

Thank you Steve...

[SteveW 1,792]

You're welcome. It's my job to ensure you get the most out of these sims and your Windows PC. I only target areas that are not so well understood. All the best.

[Dane Watson 38]

5 hours ago, SteveW said:

Hi Dane,

Have you got HT enabled and four cores?

In that case, looking at your chosen AMs - they appear to be more aligned with FSX/P3Dv3 rather than P3Dv4 so P3Dv4 users take note that's slightly different. Now they all show use of only three cores. No AM uses four cores and will naturally load big texture airports faster. Default FSX and a heavy addon exe on core zero are more suited to those AMs. Your chance to improve fps might slow down the loading of those big textures, maybe not - in that case I would try 253 which uses four cores but dedicates the first whole core to one sim process (the main one), making sure to load addon exe apps on two LPs of the last two cores. 

 

 

 

Hi Steve - I tested out AM=253 and it does seem much better than others - under same conditions my FPS went up to 35-40.

One confusion thought - I see that I can force my Flight1 GTN GPS to use the last two cores but what about the other addons like AS4, ChasePlane, etc as I do not see how to force the latter to use the last two cores?

 

[SteveW 1,792]

We can use a batch file (.BAT) to launch our addon. We make a text file, edit in the line to start the app, then save the file as a .bat and save it in a memorable location. Then we can drag and drop a shortcut to it and run the app from that. There are many options to that process.

Let's look at a .bat line to start an app with affinity:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "Notepad" /affinity 160 "C:\Windows\notepad.exe"

this starts Notepad.exe on 10,10,00,00 we can try it and check the situation with Task Manager app details, choose Set Affinity on the menu and look to see which cpus are checked.

Now in that file we can change "Notepad" and "C:\Windows\notepad.exe" to our addon exe app and that should start up in the same fashion.

 

 

 

[Dane Watson 38]

41 minutes ago, SteveW said:

We can use a batch file (.BAT) to launch our addon. We make a text file, edit in the line to start the app, then save the file as a .bat and save it in a memorable location. Then we can drag and drop a shortcut to it and run the app from that. There are many options to that process.

Let's look at a .bat line to start an app with affinity:

 

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "Notepad" /affinity 160 "C:\Windows\notepad.exe"

 

this starts Notepad.exe on 10,10,00,00 we can try it and check the situation with Task Manager app details, choose Set Affinity on the menu and look to see which cpus are checked.

Now in that file we can change "Notepad" and "C:\Windows\notepad.exe" to our addon exe app and that should start up in the same fashion.

 

 

 

Thanks again, will test this out...

[Gabe777 132]

On 14/03/2018 at 12:24 PM, SteveW said:

You should let the sim to do its own affinity setting in the cfg and not override it from an app, although it can be done by the app with careful programming it's not required. Instead - use an app or a batchfile to start apps that *do not* set their own affinity.

Well Simstarter does the affinity directly via the cfg file.... it is like magic. Best app made for simming..... ever.

Try it.....  you will wonder how you have lived without it.

If you boot up a flight with 1 set of scenery enabled in Aircraft A, Airport file B, and Active Sky settings C, you can then assign a set of graphics settings, including affinity mask, start Progam D, stop programs E to G, and it then....... at the click of a button.... makes all the adjustments, and boots up P3D for you, ready to go.

It even backs up all the important files: cfg files, xml files etc, to a place of your choosing, as and when required.... daily, hourly, every time the sim closes and so on.

I seriously do not know how I lived without it. Even the Terrain cfg is backed up..... important if you use OrbX and ogtrn disable it.

If there was a nobel prize for Flightsim.... it would be shared equally between Dowson and Simstarter !

I bet 90 percent of simmers don't know it exists. I only happened upon it a few weeks ago.

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by Gabe777

[Gabe777 132]

On 14/03/2018 at 8:38 PM, Dane Watson said:

Hi Steve - I tested out AM=253 and it does seem much better than others - under same conditions my FPS went up to 35-40.

One confusion thought - I see that I can force my Flight1 GTN GPS to use the last two cores but what about the other addons like AS4, ChasePlane, etc as I do not see how to force the latter to use the last two cores?

 

Pretty sure AS16 has an affinity mask built in.

When I installed for FSX, it automatically set my FSX affinity to 14 for a quad. This suggests it automatically used Core 0. Not sure if it still does it for P3D and how you change it to a different core/s.

I would like to run the Dash 8 on Core 0, and AS16 on Core 1..... with P3D on 3, 5 6 7 and 8 (244), but that Dash 8 affinity is a joke..... try getting an answer out of them as to how their .ini works.... it's like sticking pins in your eyes !

People have been asking for 4 years, and I cannot find a straight answer...... too many double negatives in the logic.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Gabe777

[SteveW 1,792]

12 hours ago, Gabe777 said:

Well Simstarter does the affinity directly via the cfg file.... it is like magic. Best app made for simming..... ever.

Try it.....  you will wonder how you have lived without it.

If you boot up a flight with 1 set of scenery enabled in Aircraft A, Airport file B, and Active Sky settings C, you can then assign a set of graphics settings, including affinity mask, start Progam D, stop programs E to G, and it then....... at the click of a button.... makes all the adjustments, and boots up P3D for you, ready to go.

It even backs up all the important files: cfg files, xml files etc, to a place of your choosing, as and when required.... daily, hourly, every time the sim closes and so on.

I seriously do not know how I lived without it. Even the Terrain cfg is backed up..... important if you use OrbX and ogtrn disable it.

If there was a nobel prize for Flightsim.... it would be shared equally between Dowson and Simstarter !

I bet 90 percent of simmers don't know it exists. I only happened upon it a few weeks ago.

 

You missed my point. I am simply advising you that any apps that do their own affinity don't need to be instructed to do affinity by another process unless there's some advantage to it. If you want to use an app then that's fine but I also warned you that that very process can alter the intended outcome.

[SteveW 1,792]

15 hours ago, Gabe777 said:

Pretty sure AS16 has an affinity mask built in.

When I installed for FSX, it automatically set my FSX affinity to 14 for a quad. This suggests it automatically used Core 0. Not sure if it still does it for P3D and how you change it to a different core/s.

I would like to run the Dash 8 on Core 0, and AS16 on Core 1..... with P3D on 3, 5 6 7 and 8 (244), but that Dash 8 affinity is a joke..... try getting an answer out of them as to how their .ini works.... it's like sticking pins in your eyes !

People have been asking for 4 years, and I cannot find a straight answer...... too many double negatives in the logic.

in answer to your AM=14 after installing FSX, you say this infers using core zero but AM14=1110.

So in other words if HT is disabled or unavailable on that CPU and that it is two or more cores, then core zero would not be used.

But then if HT is enabled and it is a four core, then one LP of core zero will be used, and two LPs of core 1, the AM ignores the other two cores in the case of HT=On.

The AM=14 is just a suggestion mentioned in the sim notes of how the AM might be used and came from the days when dual core CPUs had just arrived.

[SteveW 1,792]

In answer to your enquiry about the core affinity of the MJC Q400 Dash 8:

 

15 hours ago, Gabe777 said:

I would like to run the Dash 8 on Core 0, and AS16 on Core 1..... with P3D on 3, 5 6 7 and 8 (244), but that Dash 8 affinity is a joke..... try getting an answer out of them as to how their .ini works.... it's like sticking pins in your eyes !

People have been asking for 4 years, and I cannot find a straight answer...... too many double negatives in the logic.

We go to the Q400 subfolder and find the ini file

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\mjc8q400\ini\mjc84.ini"

Scrolling down to the [SYSTEM] section we see:

; by default Dash-8 will not load it's tasks onto the CPU core where the FSX process runs
disableFSXCPUBypass=0

So it says it won't run on the core of the main FSX process by default. So if we want to set it up ourselves we have to say: disableFSXCPUBypass=1

Next we see some info about setting the AMs:

; Here one can specify which CPU cores the certain function threads will prefer to run
; 1 bit per core. For example, 2=CPUid2, 4=CPUid3, 6=CPUid2+3  Only takes effect if disableFSXCPUBypass is not 0
systemThreadsCPUMask=0
graphicsThreadCPUMask=0

So taking example 2=CPUid2 we can look at the binary for 2=10 shows using the second LP in from the right. Looking at 4=CPUid3 4=0100 the third LP in from the right.

6=CPUid2+3 gives us 6=0110 which is the second and third in from the right.

 

"I would like to run the Dash 8 on Core 0"

So you can set the Dash 8 to use core zero with AM=1 which in 4bit binary AM1=0001 which is LP zero.

systemThreadsCPUMask=1 and graphicsThreadCPUMask=1

 

[Dirk98 354]

14 hours ago, SteveW said:

You missed my point. I am simply advising you that any apps that do their own affinity don't need to be instructed to do affinity by another process unless there's some advantage to it.

Steve, one clarification at last about setting P3D's affinity in SIMstarter: please understand SIMstarter is essentially one big batch file that can be automatically unloaded if you wish immediately after  P3D launch. So it's not a process like Process Lasso at all. It just has a very convenient UI for planning your specific scenario settings-wise and launching P3D and anything else you want to your heart's delight with your affinity (according to the LP number you have in the system running) and line parameters. It's a great laucher, much more intuitive than writing those single or multiple batch files in assembler code lol.

SIMstarter = one Big Big batch file, like Huge one, but going to singularity on P3D launch, understood?

My 10c.

Thanks.

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by Dirk98

[SteveW 1,792]

40 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

Steve, one clarification at last about setting P3D's affinity in SIMstarter: please understand SIMstarter is essentially one big batch file that can be automatically unloaded if you wish immediately after  P3D launch. So it's not a process like Process Lasso at all. It just has a very convenient UI for planning your specific scenario settings-wise and launching P3D and anything else you want to your heart's delight with your affinity (according to the LP number you have in the system running) and line parameters. It's a great laucher, much more intuitive than writing those single or multiple batch files in assembler code lol.

SIMstarter = one Big Big batch file, like Huge one, but going to singularity on P3D launch, understood?

My 10c.

Thanks.

 

 

Again - sorry but I'm here to make comments about how stuff works and the technicalities to watch for. How your favourite apps work is not the concern. Obviously you want to mention apps that start the sim that's fine but if the sim has it's own cfg setting and  does it's own affinity then the app starts the sim and the sim does its stuff then the app isn't setting affinity it's just starting the app - and can lead to unrealised issues if not done right or if settings are not made right.

Batch files are very easy to do and it's a shame to dismiss them as you like to. I agree that some apps can improve the usefulness of our sims if they do stuff we want. As it happens I use my own tools that do a lot more than all that stuff you mention and have done so since FSX came out.

Edited March 18, 2018 by SteveW