Spectre and Meltdown related to P3D hardware.

[BusheFlyer 87]

I am sure some or many of you will already be aware of the fairly recently discovered Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities with hardware and software. These have been fixed or patched in Windows 10 and in many BIOS updates for most vendors. However, if you are running an older CPU, basically any CPU before the 8th and 9th series Intel then these fixes have markedly reduced your CPU performance in Windows and also P3D. It is also highly suspect that Intel have 'nerfed' older architectures to make the current generations seem more appealing.. but that is a side issue.

There is however an option to disable these performance reducing patches, via a tool created by Gibson Research Corporation (GRC): https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm

InSpectre reveals the status on your system on both patches and allows you to enable/disable the patches, rebooting in between.

Would I recommend disabling patches for security vulnerabilities? That is your decision to make. However, the performance hit from leaving them enabled in P3D is pretty large on older CPU's.. anything earlier than (8000 or 9000 intel CPUs, and earlier Ryzens). If you have a PC which you mainly use for simming then the consequences of disabling these patches seem pretty minimal. Also.. consider that the vulnerabilities can be mainly exploited via direct PC access to your machine, or via a local area network (or VPN). Given that my PC is in my home and has several additional 'firewalls' of my two dogs and an armed human being to overcome first, I feel fairly safe in disabling the patches personally.

Edit: Just to add.. on my X5670 I see 20%-30% improvement in FPS in the same scenario by disabling both. That is pretty significant.

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by BusheFlyer

[LecLightning56 33]

2 hours ago, BusheFlyer said:

InSpectre reveals the status on your system on both patches and allows you to enable/disable the patches, rebooting in between.

Does the tool reboot automatically or do you reboot manually having enabled/disabled?

Edit:

I understand a restart is required to effect the changes.

I have an old Intel CPU predating the 8th and 9th series Intel CPUs but cannot see any significant difference enabled/disabled using this tool.

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by LecLightning56

[G-RFRY 1,712]

Check out GamersNexus Latest video all venders drivers vulnerable, Asus AMD Nvidia Microsoft all MB BIOS software ECT . 

[BusheFlyer 87]

1 hour ago, LecLightning56 said:

Does the tool reboot automatically or do you reboot manually having enabled/disabled?

Edit:

I understand a restart is required to effect the changes.

I have an old Intel CPU predating the 8th and 9th series Intel CPUs but cannot see any significant difference enabled/disabled using this tool.

 

Yes, you can re-run the tool to verify the patches are disabled.

To my understanding the performance hit seems to be more exaggerated on the older architectures, like the X58/Xeon I use, hence why I am getting an immediately noticeable difference when enabled/disabled. Even just sitting on the tarmac in the default scenario I see around 6-8fps difference. It's repeatable and verifiable.

There is talk about the 6000 and 7000 series on the internet also suffering performance loss from this.. but I suppose it could be a much less noticeable loss. Perhaps the spikes to the low FPS values we get are less. I can not speaking of any personal experience however or have any way to test myself.

 

[Skywolf 992]

I can not even run the app on my system.  Can't figure it out

[BusheFlyer 87]

2 minutes ago, Skywolf said:

I can not even run the app on my system.  Can't figure it out

You right click the InSpectre.exe file and select run as administrator. You are on Windows 10?

[Skywolf 992]

1 minute ago, BusheFlyer said:

You right click the InSpectre.exe file and select run as administrator. You are on Windows 10?

Yes, I just did that

 

Just figured out - my Dell Threat Defense (cyclance) is picking it up silently

Edited August 20, 2019 by Skywolf

[BusheFlyer 87]

So it doesn't launch? I'm afraid I don't know much about why it wouldn't launch. 😕 Perhaps there is some information on the grc page about problems running it.

[jimcarrel 688]

You can check the .exe by selecting and clicking on "properties" checking through the properties box you will probably find it has been blocked by system, but you will have a box to click and un-block it. I would suggest to have your anti-virus scan it before unblocking. I have just done what I suggested you do, and it runs just fine.

[G-RFRY 1,712]

Spectre and Meltdown was patched by Microsoft 5 months ago.

[Indy511 686]

Good app.
Right click InSpectre.exe, Run as Administrator.
Running 3 year old system with Intel i7. I always keep my Windows 10 OS up to date. 

Spoiler

From the app:

Spoiler

Spectre & Meltdown Vulnerability Status

System is Meltdown protected: YES
System is Spectre protected: YES
Microcode Update Available: YES
Performance: GOOD
CPUID: 506E3
(full details below)

In early 2018 the PC industry was rocked by the revelation that common processor design features, widely used to increase the performance of modern PCs, could be abused to create critical security vulnerabilities. The industry quickly responded, and is responding, to these Meltdown and Spectre threats by updating operating systems, motherboard BIOSes and CPU firmware.

Protection from these two significant vulnerabilities requires updates to every system's hardware-its BIOS which reloads updated processor firmware-and its operating system-to use the new processor features. To further complicate matters, newer processors contain features to minimize the performance impact of these important security improvements. But older processors, lacking these newer features, will be significantly burdened and system performance will suffer under some workloads.

This InSpectre utility was designed to clarify every system's current situation so that appropriate measures can be taken to update the system's hardware and software for maximum security and performance.

This system's present situation:

This 64-bit version of Windows has been updated for full awareness of both the Spectre and the Meltdown vulnerabilities. If the system's hardware (see below) has also been updated, this system will not be vulnerable to these attacks.

This system's hardware has been updated with new features required to allow its operating system to protect against the Spectre vulnerabilities and/or to minimize their impact upon the system's performance. (Protection from the Meltdown vulnerability does not require BIOS or processor updates.)

This system's Intel processor provides high-performance protection from the Meltdown vulnerability. A properly updated operating system will be able to provide protection without significant system slowdown.

This system's Intel processor provides high-performance protection from the Meltdown vulnerability and this version of Windows is taking full advantage of those features to offer that protection without overly severe performance penalties.

Due to the potential performance impact of these vulnerability protections, which may be particularly burdensome on older hardware and operating systems that cannot be updated, either one or both of these protections may be disabled with Windows registry settings. This system's "protection disable" is currently set as follows:

The system's registry is configured to enable both of the Spectre and Meltdown protections. Within the bounds of any limitations described above, Windows will work with the system's processor to prevent the exploitation of these vulnerabilities.

Guidance & Observations

This system is running as securely and quickly as possible in the face of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. Its modern hardware and Windows OS are working together to prevent these attacks with minimal impact upon performance.

When enabled and active, both of these vulnerability protections come at some cost in system performance, and Meltdown attack protection may be quite expensive on older systems or under versions of Windows where Microsoft has not bothered to implement high-speed solutions. If this system's performance is more important than security, either or both of the vulnerability protections can be disabled to obtain greater performance.

When InSpectre is run with elevated administrative privilege, each button below toggles its respective protection on or off. Any changes will take effect after the system is restarted. Each button will be disabled if its protection is not available to be changed.

 For more information see GRC's InSpectre web page 

Copyright © 2018 by Gibson Research Corporation
 

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by BillS511

[ChrisDa 41]

I used their DNS Reconfiguration Guide with great results. It can be found at https://www.grc.com/dns/configuring.htm

Since my recent changeover to our NBN (broadband) here in Australia, my internet connection was slower than the old ADSL +2.

I ran the analysis and it came up with 2 new DNS resolver addresses, plugged them in and now my internet connection is somewhere where it should be, super fast.

They have some other great tools on their web site as well.

Chris.

[somiller 694]

I ran Passmark CPU Mark with spectre and meltdown disabled, and enabled, and there was negligible difference on my 6700K. I think the 6700 is a 6th Gen cpu.

My results:

disabled - CPU Mark - 12498; Single Thread - 2595

enabled - CPU Mark - 12391 - 99.14%/disabled; Single Thread - 2583 - 99.54%/disabled

Since my CPU performance enabled is over 99% of performance disabled, I suspect any difference in P3D performance is little-to-none.

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Doesn't the 6700k have the updated CPU microcode?

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

Would you recommend this for 4790k?