Viamonte

Actually, another fix would be to disable Hypertreading on BIOS, and leaving the affinity to all four cores, but four threads instead of eight, because the number of THREADS seems to be the issue that EA representative pointed out. Anyone there care to try my theory?

Maybe that's a reason many people don't have this issue.. they oc'd and disabled HT to improve temps.

No, this doesn't fix it.  I know 120% that doesn't fix it.  Disabling one core and only using 3 seems to be working.  Disabling HT does NOT fix it.
 

NDOT01

Hey, I took you seriously before!  You were probably on of the reasons why I'm switching from AMD to Intel, lol. (i7 - 930 to be exact ^__^)

Well again, I'd never advocate a change if you're fine with your FPS/performance, only if you were seeing lower than expected performance in particular games.  Either way, let us know what you think.  Honestly that's what it really comes down to, people who go through the actual process themselves who can then share their own experiences and thoughts on the upgrade first-hand.  There's plenty of others I've seen recently stating big gains from similar upgrades, unfortunately the ones who who are most vocal and outspoken against the possibility of CPU bottlenecks typically aren't as enthusiastic about sharing their experiences later, as that will often mean admitting they were wrong in the first place.  But ya I think you'll appreciate the upgrade with those 2x480 for sure. 
 
 

DNOTTIS

Does anyone know if there is a way to make a shortcut that would set affinty on launch of the game to 3 cores?

ELEET allows you to set process affinity to specific process .exes and hot key it, however, running ELEET can cause conflicts with fan control.  There was also an app a long time ago called core maximizer that allowed you to change affinity quickly for Supreme Commander, but not sure if it allows you to customize for different .exes.

Yep ELEET works perfect, the only thing you have to watch out for is the conflict with fanspeed control with GTX 400 cards. 

NDOT01

Viamonte

Actually, another fix would be to disable Hypertreading on BIOS, and leaving the affinity to all four cores, but four threads instead of eight, because the number of THREADS seems to be the issue that EA representative pointed out. Anyone there care to try my theory?

Maybe that's a reason many people don't have this issue.. they oc'd and disabled HT to improve temps.

What does disabling HT do for you besides temps anyways?

Well it's a feature that eats CPU cycles, and I use no software that needs more than 4 threads, so there isn't much of a reason to leave it on for me. Many oc'ers disable it noto nly because of ythe few degrees lower, but it also helps against instability problems.

chizow
There's plenty of others I've seen recently stating big gains from similar upgrades, unfortunately the ones who who are most vocal and outspoken against the possibility of CPU bottlenecks typically aren't as enthusiastic about sharing their experiences later, as that will often mean admitting they were wrong in the first place.  But ya I think you'll appreciate the upgrade with those 2x480 for sure. 

I had some pretty big gains (with BFBC2 multiplayer specifically) when I went from a q9650 @ 4ghz to an i7 960 @ stock speeds.  Maybe about 25% of the time that I've posted this, I've had an avid non-i7 guy bludgeon me to death on the forum for stating this.  Hence, I stay out of the CPU bottleneck debate too, because some people just can't be convinced and it's not worth my time to argue the point when I could be playing games stutter-free with maximum framerates on my 480s instead.

Regarding the BFBC2 affinity fix, I am starting to wonder if limiting the game to 3 cores leaves one core completely free to deal with the OS, drivers, etc. and hence the game runs more smoothly for some people. 

dyno0919

For those with affinity issues you have to press the button in the bottom left, I think it says "show all processes" or something like that.

Damn, I forgot to do that! Thanks.

I have two 480 GTX's and I play it smooth as ever.  I also have an I7 930 Oc'd.  I only had a stuttering issue on the 480 GTX release drivers.

diynoob

I had some pretty big gains (with BFBC2 multiplayer specifically) when I went from a q9650 @ 4ghz to an i7 960 @ stock speeds.  Maybe about 25% of the time that I've posted this, I've had an avid non-i7 guy bludgeon me to death on the forum for stating this.  Hence, I stay out of the CPU bottleneck debate too, because some people just can't be convinced and it's not worth my time to argue the point when I could be playing games stutter-free with maximum framerates on my 480s instead.

Regarding the BFBC2 affinity fix, I am starting to wonder if limiting the game to 3 cores leaves one core completely free to deal with the OS, drivers, etc. and hence the game runs more smoothly for some people. 

Heheh ya exactly, it just makes no sense to me why some people are so resistant to the idea. 
 
But ya I think you're probably right about that CPU load hunch, with all the OS processes and GPU driver kernel while allowing the game to use as many cores as it wanted, they just ran into conflicts on those cores fighting for CPU time.  If I had to pinpoint it even further, I would track it down to the various network services as we typically saw most complaints were in MP, and from my own observations, network services were using upwards of 10-20% CPU time, which is close to a single core for itself. 
 
I think some of it is load balancing conflicts too, for example, there's a weird bug with Fallout 3 and Win7 with random crashes unless you change the core affinity back to 1: http://www.pdsys.org/blog/post/2009/02/07/Fallout-3-VideoDisplay-Freezes-sound-keeps-going.aspx
 
I've also read similar issues with Source engine games having similar problems.....so ya I think in the end it comes down to devs doing a better job of optimizing their engines for multiple cores, and task-based threading should help a lot in this area going forward.

chrisdglong

No go here, it actually did stutter when I set it to 3 cores. Before, it did not.

Whats your setup?
 

chizow

diynoob

I had some pretty big gains (with BFBC2 multiplayer specifically) when I went from a q9650 @ 4ghz to an i7 960 @ stock speeds.  Maybe about 25% of the time that I've posted this, I've had an avid non-i7 guy bludgeon me to death on the forum for stating this.  Hence, I stay out of the CPU bottleneck debate too, because some people just can't be convinced and it's not worth my time to argue the point when I could be playing games stutter-free with maximum framerates on my 480s instead.

Regarding the BFBC2 affinity fix, I am starting to wonder if limiting the game to 3 cores leaves one core completely free to deal with the OS, drivers, etc. and hence the game runs more smoothly for some people. 

Heheh ya exactly, it just makes no sense to me why some people are so resistant to the idea. 
 
But ya I think you're probably right about that CPU load hunch, with all the OS processes and GPU driver kernel while allowing the game to use as many cores as it wanted, they just ran into conflicts on those cores fighting for CPU time.  If I had to pinpoint it even further, I would track it down to the various network services as we typically saw most complaints were in MP, and from my own observations, network services were using upwards of 10-20% CPU time, which is close to a single core for itself. 
 
I think some of it is load balancing conflicts too, for example, there's a weird bug with Fallout 3 and Win7 with random crashes unless you change the core affinity back to 1: http://www.pdsys.org/blog/post/2009/02/07/Fallout-3-VideoDisplay-Freezes-sound-keeps-going.aspx
 
I've also read similar issues with Source engine games having similar problems.....so ya I think in the end it comes down to devs doing a better job of optimizing their engines for multiple cores, and task-based threading should help a lot in this area going forward.

Wait a minute, that is why my Fallout 3 crashes sometimes?  Grrr.....I had just gotten used to saving all the time, lol.

I consistently ran around 65% 965 CPU usage with my 285 playing BFBC2.
Installed my new 470 several days ago and have been concerned that my GPU usage is in the 50-65% range.
My thought was that the 470 might put more stress on the CPU, hadn't checked my CPU usage until tonight.
The CPU usage is exactly the same as when I ran my 285, 65% while playing BFBC2.

And btw, I get absolutely no stuttering whatsoever.

I have an I7-930 and a GTX 470 (with windows 7 64bit) and i have not seen any stuttering. I usually play all my games with vsync on however, So I'm not sure if its related.

Yeah, it dropped me from 60-70fps to around 40. 

diynoob

chrisdglong

Yeah, it dropped me from 60-70fps to around 40. 

What did?  Limiting the game to 3 cores?  If so, that should tell people right away that the game is CPU bound.

Absolutely! Dropping only 2 threads dropped the average fps by 20-30. CPU bound all the way. Mine runs smooth as butter with my i7 920. 

With my setup (i7, 480 SLI) turning off a core actually causes a pretty significant stutter. Putting it back to all four cores makes it smooth again.