6 and 8 Core Support

[stebbinsd]

When dealing with multi-core CPUs, a general rule of thumb is supposed to be ...

 

Frequency per core * No. of Cores = Overall Clock Speed

 

So an AMD FX-4350 should have a 16GHz overall clock speed, while an AMD FX-6300 - which has a half a gigahertz less frequency per core than the AMD FX-4350, but has two extra cores - should have a 21GHz overall clock speed.

 

This means that the AMD FX-6300 should be far superior to the AMD FX-4350, despite having a slightly slower frequency per core.

 

Yet, according to this benchmark comparison ...

 

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-6300-vs-AMD-FX-4350

 

... the two are roughly equal in overall quality.

 

Indeed, at least for me personally, my performance with Fallout 4 actually went into the tank when I "upgraded" from the 4350 to the 6300. It went back up when I upgraded to the 8350, but that's understandable, since both the cores and the frequency were an improvement over the 6300. However, it only went back up to what my performance was with my old 4350, despite having twice as many cores!

 

This article actually sheds some light on this problem:

 

https://create.pro/blog/cores-faster-cpu-clock-speed-explained/

 

This article explains that multiple cores only provide better overall clock speed if the individual software apps are programmed to work with multiple cores.

 

This would certainly explain my performance problem across multiple CPU upgrades. Fallout 4 apparently is only programmed to work with 4 cores, so my AMD FX-4350 was processing FO4 like a 4-core 4.0GHz processor. Meanwhile, the AMD FX-6300 was processing the game like a 4-core 3.5GHz processor, which explains the drop in perfomance, and the 8350 is processing the game like a 4-core 4.0GHz processor, hence why my performance with the 8350 is more-less identical to that with my 4350.

 

So can someone make a mod that allows Fallout 4 to make use of 6 and 8 core CPUs, instead of just 4?

[iXenite]

First off, no mod will ever be able to do what you want it to do. That's coded into the engine to only really use 1 core effectively. As for this whole "overall core frequency" thing you're talking about, it's doesn't really work like that in the real world. I can assure you that the FX 6300 is not that much better than any other FX chip. It's just not a good architecture, not amount of overclocking is going to change that. What you're talking about in general requires assumes that the tasks are perfectly parallel with one another and completely independent. Outside of synthetic testing, that's not going to happen. It's not as simple as just adding the numbers together when calculating the Ghz your CPU runs at. My CPU is not running at 28Ghz, it runs at 3.5Ghz (I have the Ryzen 7 1700x). The biggest weakness of the FX architecture is it's IPC (instructions per clock). Intel has very high IPC, which makes applications that really only use 1 core or maybe 2 cores run very well on Intel chips. AMD chips, especially their older CPU's (like the FX line) have low IPC, instead favoring more cores. This makes applications, like any game made by Bethesda Game Studios, that use about 1 core only run very poorly. I hope this makes sense.

[instyne49]

First off, no mod will ever be able to do what you want it to do. That's coded into the engine to only really use 1 core effectively. As for this whole "overall core frequency" thing you're talking about, it's doesn't really work like that in the real world. I can assure you that the FX 6300 is not that much better than any other FX chip. It's just not a good architecture, not amount of overclocking is going to change that. What you're talking about in general requires assumes that the tasks are perfectly parallel with one another and completely independent. Outside of synthetic testing, that's not going to happen. It's not as simple as just adding the numbers together when calculating the Ghz your CPU runs at. My CPU is not running at 28Ghz, it runs at 3.5Ghz (I have the Ryzen 7 1700x). The biggest weakness of the FX architecture is it's IPC (instructions per clock). Intel has very high IPC, which makes applications that really only use 1 core or maybe 2 cores run very well on Intel chips. AMD chips, especially their older CPU's (like the FX line) have low IPC, instead favoring more cores. This makes applications, like any game made by Bethesda Game Studios, that use about 1 core only run very poorly. I hope this makes sense.

I want to thank you for the explanation, I haven't used AMD in about 8 years on my first build. Your explanation of the IPC vs cores, cleared up a question I had about a different situation.

[iXenite]

 

I want to thank you for the explanation, I haven't used AMD in about 8 years on my first build. Your explanation of the IPC vs cores, cleared up a question I had about a different situation.

 

 

You're welcome. I'm glad my post was able to clear some things up for you. :)