Improved CPU Performance and Management with Coreprio from Bitsum

[LecLightning56 33]

I thought that I would bring a free software tool to the attention of Prepar3D users called CorePrio by Bitsum. The software uses Dynamic Local Mode (DLM) which is Bitsum's implementation of AMD's Dynamic Local Mode.

Bitsum describes DLM as follows: 

"DLM works by dynamically migrating the most active software threads to the prioritized CPU cores. The Windows CPU scheduler is free to choose specifically where within that set of CPUs to assign threads.

Since no hard CPU affinity is set, applications are still free to expand across the entire CPU. For this reason, we call it a prioritized soft CPU affinity.

DLM is designed for loads that don’t max out all available CPU cores. Applications that put a full load across the entire CPU could perform marginally worse. This is because when the entire CPU is loaded, there are no CPU cores to prioritize threads to since all must be utilized. Thus it may be ideal to exclude some highly multi-threaded applications."

With my dated, Intel i7 875K processor (I am not made of money for the latest and greatest!), I am experiencing much better and smoother performance in Prepar3D v4.4. It would appear that, under certain circumstances with my CPU, Core 0 is maxed out and you can enable Bitsum's Dynamic Local Mode in Coreprio to prioritize the CPU affinity to say Cores 1-3. This is not the same as setting a default CPU affinity, i.e. not a hard CPU affinity but a soft one instead, and applications are still free to expand across the entire CPU. This has resulted in my case with much more efficient CPU usage and comparatively, exceptionally smoother performance in Prepar3d v4.4 itself even at lower frame rates down to say 20 fps. Whereas this may not be a magic bullet for all systems, in my case I can vouch for the improvements and what is more it is absolutely free. Jeremy Collake of Bitsum has advised me he may be thinking of incorporating Coreprio into the more well-known Process Lasso software, but only as a largely standalone offshoot from it.

So, go ahead and experiment yourself if you feel your system may benefit from the CPU affinity prioritization and what is more it is free to download and use.

Finally, I do not use an Affiinity Mask in the Prepar3D.cfg file. I simply found it caused too many blurries in the scenery and what is more it is a hard CPU affinity and does not allow Prepar3D to expand across the entire CPU.

[jpf 14]

I'm not challenging your results but it does seem to be aimed at AMD CPUs.

link

[LecLightning56 33]

7 minutes ago, jpf said:

I'm not challenging your results but it does seem to be aimed at AMD CPUs.

link

I am inclined to agree that the main emphasis does appear to be directed towards AMD CPUs, but the basic functionality does seem to read across to my older generation Intel processor very nicely. There appears to be no other tool out there which can perform the same operations on CPU affinity if it is more desirable to utilize a soft CPU affinity rather than something set non-dynamically.

[GSalden 4,657]

6 hours ago, LecLightning56 said:

Finally, I do not use an Affiinity Mask in the Prepar3D.cfg file. I simply found it caused too many blurries in the scenery and what is more it is a hard CPU affinity and does not allow Prepar3D to expand across the entire CPU.

If you do not use the correct AM value indeed you better not use it as that might lead to blurries.

However, when using addons it can help giving them their own core(s) so the other cores can be used for Fs.

Or, in my case, limit the amount of cores for Fs. I have a 14 core 7940x and that amount is too much in heavy scenery and leads to CTD’s. Using just 8 for Fs ( AM ) and the others for the addons ( aff batchfiles ) is the way to go for my system...