16 cores and Affinity Mask

[Zeuss_1238 0]

I have just received the new AMD Threadripper and getting the motherboard tonight and looking to put it in over the weekend, and am trying to see which games will utilize all cores

Now I know p3d will use all cores but you need to set it up with Affinity Mask maybe? Not sure

If so can someone tell what I should set the Affinity mask value to

All the calculators I have found only go up to 8 cores so....

Any help is greatly appreciated :)

 

[gboz 157]

Great to see a potential AMD cpu contender again.

Guess you will be getting plenty of advise on this one.

gb.

[gboz 157]

44 minutes ago, Zeuss_1238 said:

If so can someone tell what I should set the Affinity mask value to

All the calculators I have found only go up to 8 cores so....

 

If you are not going to run it with simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) on you can use those calculators to get an 8 core with HT ON value and use that.

So 8 core HT on = 16 core SMT off.

gb.

 

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Hey guys n girls,

I have just finished a discussion regarding multi cores and threads (Different CPUs for different Sims) and have been categorically advised (at least, this is MY understanding) that NO sim platforms can use multi cores or threads. More threads or cores mean nothing and CPU single core speed is the" be all and end all" for current sims.

I am now, more confused than ever.

The gist of my understanding is that single core CPU speed is not going to advance much further and is the MAIN reason for the recent development into extra cores .... more cores/threads means more data can be processed and this to my mind over-rides  CPU speeds . However, again, this is MY understanding, the sim platforms can not utilise these multi cores at this time. I have, however, read somewhere that XPlane11 can and does, utilise them better and I am pretty sure that this info came from the man himself .. Austin Meyers.  I further believe this is being looked at even further by XPlane in light of the (planned????) move to the Vulcan API (whatever that means)

SO, Just what is the TRUTH here, or are we all being connedby the chip makers. Do more threads, read also more expensive, mean better performance for flight sims in general and modern sims in particular, or not? Has anyone got a definitive quote, or can provide a link to a definitive statement from P3D, FSW, Xplane or any others that can actually put this to rest.

My main reason for the original topic was to enhance my decision making abilities for an eventual upgrade. That discussion did "just that" and now this topic comes up. Hence my extreme befuddlement.

I do NOT want to start WW3 (I think Donald is well on the way to that LOL) but look forward to further discussion.

Regards to you all

Tony Chlcott 

[aeronauta 66]

2 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

However, again, this is MY understanding, the sim platforms can not utilise these multi cores at this time.

Just run your sim and look at performance in the Task Manager ...how many cores in use??? some more some less but all available to the App are running..

Jorge

 

 

[swiesma 625]

Yep, P3D uses all cores. But the main thread runs on Core 0 and runs at 99% all the time - this is the thread which limits the performance. -> So yes, single core speed is a must have for P3D.

Other stuff like loading textures etc. are loaded off to other CPU cores. You will see them being utilized, but nost of the time not at 100%.

 

@Zeuss_1238 You can simple take the windows calculator, set it to binary (set View -> programmer or scientific), type in whatever cores you want to use, for example "1111111111111110" (all cores except core 0 are utilized) and then switch to decimal and you will get the AF mask :-) In this case 65534

[Zeuss_1238 0]

On 8/16/2017 at 8:38 PM, himmelhorse said:

Hey guys n girls,

I have just finished a discussion regarding multi cores and threads (Different CPUs for different Sims) and have been categorically advised (at least, this is MY understanding) that NO sim platforms can use multi cores or threads. More threads or cores mean nothing and CPU single core speed is the" be all and end all" for current sims.

I am now, more confused than ever.

The gist of my understanding is that single core CPU speed is not going to advance much further and is the MAIN reason for the recent development into extra cores .... more cores/threads means more data can be processed and this to my mind over-rides  CPU speeds . However, again, this is MY understanding, the sim platforms can not utilise these multi cores at this time. I have, however, read somewhere that XPlane11 can and does, utilise them better and I am pretty sure that this info came from the man himself .. Austin Meyers.  I further believe this is being looked at even further by XPlane in light of the (planned????) move to the Vulcan API (whatever that means)

SO, Just what is the TRUTH here, or are we all being connedby the chip makers. Do more threads, read also more expensive, mean better performance for flight sims in general and modern sims in particular, or not? Has anyone got a definitive quote, or can provide a link to a definitive statement from P3D, FSW, Xplane or any others that can actually put this to rest.

My main reason for the original topic was to enhance my decision making abilities for an eventual upgrade. That discussion did "just that" and now this topic comes up. Hence my extreme befuddlement.

I do NOT want to start WW3 (I think Donald is well on the way to that LOL) but look forward to further discussion.

Regards to you all

Tony Chlcott 

actually the threadripper is 1000 about $200 cheaper than intels 10 core

For me this seems like less single core speed but still a win

The i9 does also have a few heating problems I have been hearing about so I wasn't so sure 

[Zeuss_1238 0]

On 8/17/2017 at 4:04 AM, swiesma said:

Yep, P3D uses all cores. But the main thread runs on Core 0 and runs at 99% all the time - this is the thread which limits the performance. -> So yes, single core speed is a must have for P3D.

Other stuff like loading textures etc. are loaded off to other CPU cores. You will see them being utilized, but nost of the time not at 100%.

 

@Zeuss_1238 You can simple take the windows calculator, set it to binary (set View -> programmer or scientific), type in whatever cores you want to use, for example "1111111111111110" (all cores except core 0 are utilized) and then switch to decimal and you will get the AF mask :-) In this case 65534

So my affinity mask would be 65534?

I want to try out a few numbers. 12 cores, 10 cores, maybe all 16! Would the "number" be 1111111111110000 for 12 cores?

Although the single core is lower speed it is still fantastic!

I will use it for other things that are cpu intensive ;)

Soon games will be utilizing all cores and need to so yeah

[Zeuss_1238 0]

On 8/16/2017 at 6:27 PM, gboz said:

If you are not going to run it with simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) on you can use those calculators to get an 8 core with HT ON value and use that.

So 8 core HT on = 16 core SMT off.

gb.

 

Thanks!

I'll try this

[swiesma 625]

15 minutes ago, Zeuss_1238 said:

So my affinity mask would be 65534?

I want to try out a few numbers. 12 cores, 10 cores, maybe all 16! Would the "number" be 1111111111110000 for 12 cores?

Yep, you convert this to decimal and have your number :-)

[Zeuss_1238 0]

Just now, swiesma said:

Yep, you convert this to decimal and have your number :-)

Sounds good!

Thanks for the help all

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

You purchase a great CPU and you still need to tweak it?  My i7 7700K is using all cores w/o tweaking.

Best regards,

Jim

[odourboy 1,288]

2 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

You purchase a great CPU and you still need to tweak it?  My i7 7700K is using all cores w/o tweaking.

Best regards,

Jim

Sure... but is if running as optimally as it could be? 

[sillyflyer 11]

Step right up, step right up!   
Click for right mood music

Spin the affinity mask wheel..   round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows.

Sometimes someone rattles off a good number, most of the time the number doesn't work.. but everyone tries, if, they find that number at all.

Then there are those who swear the number they had was awesome 6 months ago but for some strange reason, its not the same anymore.

That's right, step right up and lets calculate the affinity mask, only one to a customer.

<now back to the regularly scheduled program, already in progress unless someone has a 6 paragraph explanation with graphs about how affinity mask works and what number to use>  

....and then we will spin the wheel again! 

[Jim Young 2,356]

Understand.  For me, I will never know what "optimal" is either.  I'm definitely happy though.  I recently flew a flight from FSDT KORD to FlightBeam's KIAD HD w/the PMDG 747 and AS16 running real weather and with GEP3D/UTX2 and got the following:

*** FSUIPC log file
Minimum frame rate was 14.4 fps, Maximum was 90.8 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 5742 secs = 35.6 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 507 aircraft
Memory managed: 3533 Allocs, 3532 Freed

It was raining at Chicago and upon landing at KIAD.  I landed at night too which affect performance dramatically.  In former versions of P3D or FSX, I barely landed w/o crashing because I ran out of VAS and the stuttering was horrendous.  This flight was as smooth as silk.

Best regards,

Jim