New P3D 5.3+ Affinity Mask Calculator

[IanHarrison 523]

I suppose it is because my processor is older that I am finding that leaving any core unused by P3D harms the performance.

So far my best performance is to allocate all cores to P3D and move as many subsidiary programmes as possible away from the first 2 cores.

Approaching EGLL in heavy cloud this morning I added the two unused cores to P3D (if that is the correct terminology) and with all cores allocated it handled EGLL approach with TE  active at around 20 fps with only one  pause as Heathrow was being loaded, I suppose.

The work continues.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,026]

Ian, do you have HT enabled? With only 4 cores your options are limited. You could try moving all 3rd party executables to the last core. But it does depend on whether HT is enabled and what your JobScheduler entry is.

[joepoway 241]

35 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

We need a way of assigning an AM to add-on programs. Seems daft they adopt the AM of P3D - all cores by default.

Ray I’m not sure what you mean.
 

As I stated previously if you open an app like Process Lasso after you have all your P3D addons running you can either look into the processes or active processes section and see everything that’s running. You can also sort them by clicking on the column header of your choice. Then select them one by one and right click then select the set affinity and select always. I usually then select clear so then I pick the cores I want from a clean slate. Once you’ve done this and set Process Lasso to auto start with Windows you never have to think about it again. I like to click on the affinity column because there you can see all the apps sorted by the cores they’re running on to see if you missed anything. I even go as far as moving the task manager and HWinfo64 etc…

As I recall P3D still shows all cores available because that’s the recommended affinity line to use but the P3D specific affinity line in the config file prevents this as can be seen by either viewing the performance window under task manager or I prefer HWinfo64 so I can track highs, current values and averages on all cores as well as temps and everything else in your PC that you desire. If ou spend some time you can customize the view to show just the items you like and reorder and even color code them.

Joe

[IanHarrison 523]

17 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Ian, do you have HT enabled? With only 4 cores your options are limited. You could try moving all 3rd party executables to the last core. But it does depend on whether HT is enabled and what your JobScheduler entry is.

Yes HT is enabled.  Job scheduler is now set to 255 and 255. All programs that I can move are off the first 4 cores (out of 8). Another flight tomorrow to test this setting.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,026]

@joepoway, no real interest in PL. I looked at the website and whilst the free version has some features it’s not clear if the paid version is required for what you suggest. I won’t pay £15/ annum for it when SimStarterNG does virtually everything I need.

What I meant was having a way to assign executables launched via addon.cfg to a specific AM setting. By default they adopt all cores.

After changing the AM for a few executables no real difference was noted. I might ask the SSNG author if AF can be assigned to executables in the add-on cfg.

As for monitoring everything that’s going on I have no real interest. Task Manager is fine for my needs.

@IanHarrison, remind me of your JobScheduler settings please. Are you overclocking?

[kevinfirth 1,407]

30 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

. I won’t pay £15/ annum for it

No need to, it runs for free...

[DrumsArt 270]

3 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I haven't noticed this?  Do you run Chaseplane manually or loaded with P3D?  I manually load ChasePlane prior to running P3D and it does "stay" on the core I assign it according to process Lasso and Task Manager.

Cheers, Rob.

Just loaded with P3D. Same AM as P3D for Chase Plane and Chase Plane_Bridge.

Richard.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,026]

5 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

No need to, it runs for free...

I would only make very limited use of it Kevin. Once these parameters are set for the JobScheduler section I’ll probably never touch them again.

[F737MAX 5,696]

27 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I would only make very limited use of it Kevin. Once these parameters are set for the JobScheduler section I’ll probably never touch them again.

Ray, it's all the programs and background process that aren't P3D you would use the free version of Process Lasso for.
You move them off of your CPU cores being heavily used by P3D.

I used to use Process Lasso, but my current CPU doesn't like it. I now use a couple of alternative methods to achieve the same results—that is, preventing key CPU cores from being saturated by both P3D workload and another program and/or task, which introduces stutters or freezes into the sim.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,026]

8 minutes ago, F737NG said:

Ray, it's all the programs and background process that aren't P3D you would use the free version of Process Lasso for.
You move them off of your CPU cores being heavily used by P3D.

When all those processes show very low usage what’s the point? Look at my core 0 usage. Under 10% for the OS. As for them making any appreciable difference to P3D I have serious reservations. Look at my screenshots above. Of the four cores associated with P3D three have plenty in reserve.

Because I limit P3D to 30fps it’s not running flat out anyway. The only difference I might notice is a few more Ai at busy airports.

The number of stutters and pauses I Get is minimal. I suspect some like on approach to Gatwick or Heathrow are probably down to how the scenery was designed. Not because of anything wrong with my setup.

[IanHarrison 523]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

 

 @IanHarrisonremind me of your JobScheduler settings please. Are you overclocking?

[JobScheduler]
AffinityMask=255
P3DCoreAffinityMask=255
MainThreadScheduler=2
RenderThreadScheduler=4
FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=6

Mild CPU overclock to 4.4 on all cores.

Edited January 4, 2022 by IanHarrison

[Ray Proudfoot 9,026]

@IanHarrison, try 60 for the P3DCoreAffinity setting.

That will assign cores 2-5 for P3D leaving 0-1 for the OS and 6-7 for your programs like ASP3D etc.

If you don’t see any difference just revert to your current values.

[IanHarrison 523]

Completely unrelated: I didn't realise until I heard Rob that the word "Lasso" is pronounced completely differently in the U.S.

Rob pronounces it as Lass -oh, with the accent on the first syllable. In the UK it is pronounced Lass - oo, with the accent on the second syllable.

I suppose it still works the same😀

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by IanHarrison
Expanded.

[KL Oo 706]

10 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I made a quick video here that I hope helps and doesn't confuse:

Cheers, Rob.

EDIT: Graphics settings are at the end of the video, scenery is Orbx TE NorCal, aircraft A2A.  RTSS used for some of the inflight GPU/CPU data overlay along with Task Manager for individual core assignments both P3D and external via Process Lasso.  This is on my AMD 5950X 16 core SMT disabled (SMT = HT).

Brilliant work Rob.

Now if we could just get LM to solve the issue of random chronic stuttering and plummeting FPS in 5.3 we'd be set!

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Ray Proudfoot
Embedded video in quote removed

[KL Oo 706]

Yeah I'm seeing it even after the creation of a new Prepar3d.CFG and using default airports. When I see it I post over on the LM thread tracking the issue

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6315&t=143918&start=210

but I fail to see a common possible cause and its not easily reproduceable for me. Sometimes it occurs after 5 minutes sitting at the gate, other times 8 hours into a flight. Othertimes not at all. It probably happens once out of every 3 or 4 flights for me. 

No idea what causes it, allI know is I'm over it.