Hello,
I was just wondering why the CPU (for 2 cores if your running quad) is never at peak level. Is it more graphics dependent? I have a hd 4 series and it's been very good to me, being able to play most games on max graphics with the exception of really grafix demanding games and physics. I have also noticed this when converting a video supporting quad core. Converting a video, it would use around 45 percent of the CPU and when converting 2 videos simultaneously it would use 90 percent of the CPU.
Also when i say 45 percent, I don't mean it maxs out 2 cores. It is over all four cores.
I have noticed similar with dolphin when games aren't running at full speed.I.e. Games run slow and 2 cores aren't maxed out. So is the graphics limiting it?
Could some shed some light?
Thanks,
I'm betting you have hyper-threading on. If you disable it, dolphin should be able to utilize all of your processor cycles. There should be an option to disable it in your BIOS.
is hyper threading a BAD thing?
It most likely is on
when you say bios you mean pc bios not emu bios don't you?
edit: i just did some research and it appears i3/i5/i7 and pentium use HT. i should mention i have core 2 quad. so maybe i don't have HT on.
edit 2: ok, now i don't have hyperthreading (according to intel) but i have 4 threads and 4 cores. so make of that what you will because i'm confused.
edit 3: ok so i found this option "lock threads to cores". in terms of actual speed, little or no difference. however, i noticed that when you click a menu option (ingame) and it play a "selected tune", it's faster with "lock threads to cores option" on. also, in terms of cores, i now see 2 cores pretty much maxed, instead of 4 distributing the load. (i'm guessin using 2 cores maxed would make the fan work more i.e. bigger electric bill - so i switched it off to be on the safe side:-)). also, when i say pretty much maxed, i see the cpu (for the 2 cores in question) only every reaching a maximum of 80% and sometimes dropping to around 60%, yet the game runs at 20fps. which goes back to my original question. is it graphic card heavy?
What game are you playing?
And what is your specific cpu/gpu?
intel q8xxx 2.33ghz
ati hd4000 series 1gb by powercolor
game is just in general but if you want an example then mario kart wii. it's at 20 fps and with frameskip 4 (which i find a playable frameskip for this game) it's at 47 fps.
and mario bros wii is just rediculously slow, my res is 1280x1024 so it's not 1080p/i
i can play mario party7 and donkey kong drum beat.
i believe 1080 avalanche is a gc game? that is similar to mario kart wii except the sound is slow too.
In nfs shift for pc. i could never turn on AA because it was too demanding, but i decided to get the ferrari and exotic car mod which required me to uncompress all game data. after doing that i found out i could turn on AA and it still worked smoothly. I.E. uncompressed game data=higher performance.
is this trick possible in emulation? probably uncompress the game data in temp folder. yes the loading time would be a bit longer but i think it would be worth it.
OC your CPU 30% to 3Ghz ,most game will run fullspeed
Your Ati is looklike an onboard one which is hell slow even on 640x480
P.S Download CPU Z and recheck again
i have no idea how to oc.
i have built in itel gpu. i bought the ati card seperate along with a new psu.
what's cpu z?
i just want to know why it isn't using 2 full cores. i mean, if i oc it, it probably still isn't gonna use 2 full cores. it's wasting 20% of my cpu as it is.
the 20% of your cpu is not being wasted. Very few programs will actually max out the usage. 80% is already a bit on the high side, since most apps, even games, will not reach those levels (especially since you have quads).
Off the top of my head, the only instances I know of cores being utilized 100% is during a really heavy video conversion task (those times when your PC becomes sluggish) and CPU stress tests - which is only used to drive your processor near its breaking point, or at least until that point where it starts to commit computational errors - you wouldn't want that to happen if you're only gaming.
And yes, even if you OC it, it still isn't going to use 2 full cores. And it shouldn't, resources should be left for background tasks, even for Dolphin's non-game related threads/tasks. As for why it doesn't use the 3rd and 4th core for that, it's because Dolphin is only made to take advantage of 2 cores.