Question about Core/Thread Utilization

[surg23]

I can't seem to be able to get Fo3 to use enough CPU resources. The problem becomes most evident when entering places with lots of spawns.

 

I have a 3600x CPU and according to my OSD, only cores 1-4 show usage. Strangely, core 3 appears to be doing most of the work, while cores 5 through 12 don't really do anything.

 

I have tried setting InumHWthreads to 2-4-6 and 12, but it doesn't make any difference. I also set iNumHavokThreads to 6 with no discernible difference.

 

 

GPU utilization never exceeds 30%. Cores 1-4 average 30% with the exception of core 3 which spikes a lot. Core 0 peaks at 10%. Despite this I get extreme slowdowns in areas with lots of spawn activity. More worrying is that all I need to do is look away from the area to restore framerate and doing so does not reflect any change in GPU usage.

 

For some context, I am using MMM with 4x spawns, so it can get quite busy. Still, I would get better performance on my older systems years back.

 

 

Is there perhaps a setting I may have overlooked that is causing the severe lag spikes?

[M48A5]

The game was designed and published when the state of the art was a 2 core CPU and will only use 2 cores.

 

That is why it is necessary to edit the .ini to bUseThreadedAI=1 and iNumHWThreads=2 for the best game play.

 

It doesn't make any difference how many cores the CPU has nor is there any setting that can be changed to utilize more than two cores.

[surg23]

Ahh okay. I thought those entries acted like overrides. I read something about a correlation between capping frames and the InumHWthreads value, but I could not make sense of it. I do have FPS clamped at 59 for RH/Tickfix though.

 

I noticed some mods like TTW automatically set this value to 12. But for all I know the TTW (FNV) engine + 3rd party requirements means it's capable of using up to 6 cores.

 

Also, would you know if the setting: IpreloadSizeLimit is still applicable when using the LAA enabled executable?

Edited September 24, 2021 by surg23

[hamiltonbrown]

I can't seem to be able to get Fo3 to use enough CPU resources. The problem becomes most evident when entering places with lots of spawns.

 

I have a 3600x CPU and according to my OSD, only cores 1-4 show usage. Strangely, core 3 appears to be doing most of the work, while cores 5 through 12 don't really do anything.

 

I have tried setting InumHWthreads to 2-4-6 and 12, but it doesn't make any difference. I also set iNumHavokThreads to 6 with no discernible difference. 192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1

 

 

GPU utilization never exceeds 30%. Cores 1-4 average 30% with the exception of core 3 which spikes a lot. Core 0 peaks at 10%. Despite this I get extreme slowdowns in areas with lots of spawn activity. More worrying is that all I need to do is look away from the area to restore framerate and doing so does not reflect any change in GPU usage.

 

For some context, I am using MMM with 4x spawns, so it can get quite busy. Still, I would get better performance on my older systems years back.

 

 

Is there perhaps a setting I may have overlooked that is causing the severe lag spikes?

I set iNumThreads to 6 (no. of cores i have) under [HAVOK] in skyrim.ini and boy did it do wonders for my input lag introduced by vsync. I know this setting has historically been controversial in the sense that it did not seem to do anything but i have tested it by repeatedly changing the setting and restarting the game and the difference is quite obvious. As for stuttering, thanks to correctly setup enblocal.ini and vsync on i already had very little stuttering to begin with so i can't really tell if it had any impact on that but FPS unfortunately it did not help with, from what i could tell it had neither negative nor positive impact on fps. Just thought i'd put this here since despite there being a gazillion optimization guide for this game i don't think i have ever seen anyone mentioning this with regards to input lag. This is on oldrim btw.

Edited October 7, 2021 by hamiltonbrown

[M48A5]

 

I can't seem to be able to get Fo3 to use enough CPU resources. The problem becomes most evident when entering places with lots of spawns.

 

I have a 3600x CPU and according to my OSD, only cores 1-4 show usage. Strangely, core 3 appears to be doing most of the work, while cores 5 through 12 don't really do anything.

 

I have tried setting InumHWthreads to 2-4-6 and 12, but it doesn't make any difference. I also set iNumHavokThreads to 6 with no discernible difference.

 

 

GPU utilization never exceeds 30%. Cores 1-4 average 30% with the exception of core 3 which spikes a lot. Core 0 peaks at 10%. Despite this I get extreme slowdowns in areas with lots of spawn activity. More worrying is that all I need to do is look away from the area to restore framerate and doing so does not reflect any change in GPU usage.

 

For some context, I am using MMM with 4x spawns, so it can get quite busy. Still, I would get better performance on my older systems years back.

 

 

Is there perhaps a setting I may have overlooked that is causing the severe lag spikes?

I set iNumThreads to 6 (no. of cores i have) under [HAVOK] in skyrim.ini and boy did it do wonders for my input lag introduced by vsync. I know this setting has historically been controversial in the sense that it did not seem to do anything but i have tested it by repeatedly changing the setting and restarting the game and the difference is quite obvious. As for stuttering, thanks to correctly setup enblocal.ini and vsync on i already had very little stuttering to begin with so i can't really tell if it had any impact on that but FPS unfortunately it did not help with, from what i could tell it had neither negative nor positive impact on fps. Just thought i'd put this here since despite there being a gazillion optimization guide for this game i don't think i have ever seen anyone mentioning this with regards to input lag. This is on oldrim btw.

 

That is some very interesting information. However, the discussion is about Fallout3, which was created and released before 6 core computers were developed. Fallout: New Vegas does not have the core limitation, nor does it have the limitation of the type of graphics it can use. For Skyrim, you are talking about a 64 bit game and it capabilities are so far advanced that there is no comparison with FO3.

[surg23]

Thanks for the input. I think the problem could have been related to a glitch with the AI and/or lack of resource allocation needed to deal with certain AI states in such abundance. I ended up bumping down the spawns slightly and the problem went away entirely. It seems that the engine just isn't capable of sustaining so much AI in any given area. I've witnessed similar problems in other older game engines where the engine seizes up from too much throughput despite hardware utilization being relatively low.

 

I really love FO3, but damn, the engine it runs on is just horrid in so many ways. I struggle to accept the unfortunate paradox that engines are getting better but the games are actually getting worse. Well, at least it seems that way to me.