FSX Core i7 mini review

[davethewave2 20]

See herehttp://www.flybva.co.uk/dave/start.htm

[davethewave2 20]

Had to move the pages to herehttp://www.flybva.co.uk/fsxenhancements/main.phpNeeded to change to php as no one likes frames these days!!!(Well the world according to search engines)

[jwenham 1]

That review is so lame its not even worth looking at. My 5 year old could have done a better job! The fact that they said the overall performance seemed better was nice to see. Im sure with a properly configured setup and a overclock they could do alot better.

[michal 44]

The review may not be much but on the other hand is better than nothing. At least that user spent some time preparing it and sharing with the world rather than bragging that his son could have done it better ;) . I find however one item very interesting - small CPU usage across all 8 available threads/cores. What does it mean exactly??Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

[jwenham 1]

I think that should translate into a more consistant performance while going thru a variety of conditions. At least that is what I am hoping for. The question I have is, will we need to set the Affinity for FSX to use it to its fullest?

[tfm 169]

>I find however one item very>interesting - small CPU usage across all 8 available>threads/cores. What does it mean exactly??>>Michael J.>http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpgFSX only uses physical cores. I think Phil Taylor made a post about this on his blog at the time when FSX became multi-core aware: about the time of SP1, from memory. Apparently MS found that the hyper-threading just got things into a muddle. And I suppose that makes sense: an extra VIRTUAL core only makes sense when you have spare CPU clock cycles (in effect, to simulate the parallel processing) and FSX doesn't leave you many of those.Tim

[michal 44]

>FSX only uses physical cores.OK, but even the usage of physical cores seems very low. So on one hand you hear how CPU-hungry FSX is on the other handy none of the available physical cores seems extremely busy here.Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

[davethewave2 20]

Lame review indeed. Note the thread was titled mini review! Just thought I'd share what I had so far as there is so little info out there yet.I have tried using the affinity mask using values 15, 14 and 254 and 255. FOR THE RECORD I'M GUESSING WITH 254 AND 255. Would be useful if someone could confirm what settings are valid on an i7. I thought 254 and 255 might try 7 and 8 as that would be 11111110 and 11111111. All seemed to use different cores as a result but none made a difference to the cpu. Admittedly this was a very brief test experiment, I'd rather be flying and enjoying the game then doing this stuff!

[tfm 169]

> on the other handy none of the available physical cores seems> extremely busy hereI know you probably know this stuff Michael but just in case anyone else picks up on this thread:About a year ago someone (possibly RESET ALT MCP?) did a test using different numbers of cores. He found that the law of diminishing returns sets in quite quickly. From memory, his figures showed that FSX will make SOME use of ALL available cores; but it makes MOST use of the first two, with the third core being used quite a lot and the fourth core not nearly so much. And again, perhaps that's not really surprising: the only thing FSX is doing with the extra cores, is loading textures. Sadly, all the really difficult work (rendering, the physics/aerodynamics, AI traffic etc) gets done on a single thread on a single core. Tim

[bic 44]

> I find however one item very>interesting - small CPU usage across all 8 available>threads/cores. What does it mean exactly??>>Michael J.>http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpgthe reviewer doesn't mention what video card he has other than he had a 8600 GT with his core 2. If he's using that in the i7, I bet the cpu is overpowered for the video card.Indeed it is very interesting. Odd that FPS is still low. Could the new cpu architecture be somehow holding back the overall execution of code (ie perhaps wait for this code to exec, then run this)? Or are the cpus "waiting" for other executions to complete (ie video, disk or memory instead?). How radical a change is that? Whenever you see 100% utilization you think I need more horsepower. Now you aren't using 100% on i7, yet why is FPS not "unleashed"?

[davethewave2 20]

The graphics card is an Nvidia GT260, I do say that in the review!The machine is bog standard from Novatechhttp://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.h...&c=gaming&r=ENEPertinent specs are:Processor Intel i7 920 8MB Cache Quad Core Core 64 Bit Processor Processor Speed 2.66Ghz Memory 3GB DDR3 1333 Triple Channel Ram Hard Drive 2 x 500Gb 16MB Buffer SATA Hard Drives Graphics GeForce GTX 260 896MB DDR3 PCI Express Graphics ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics (Pro version) Sound Creative X-Fi PCI-Express Motherboard MSI Eclipse SLI X58 The one thing I changed was I loaded Vista64.If the core engine is using one thread then it would be useful to known what detail sliders impact on this and which setting I can put to max as they can be satisfied by oother cores. (If that makes sense?)

[michal 44]

Thanks Tim, I like the way you condensed this essential information for me, I admit I was missing some pieces.Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

[Guest FSYoda]

I have built a:core i7 940 OC to 3.25GHz with stock cooler12GB ram (cheap 6x2)Radeon 4870vista 64Results before OC and FSX tweak yield about 30FPS maxed out settings (except traffic and including bloom and dx10 with SP2) on 1280x1024. CPU reached ~50%, it had what seemed to be default Affinity Mask of 15.Results after OC and FSX tweak yield well over 40FPS with maxed out settings and even the traffic up, CPU reached 95% because I set Affinity Mask to 254, this sets FSX to use 7 of the 8 available CPU threads and I left one for my TrackIR. Setting Affinity and clocking 250MHz up really affected performance, and I cannot stop having fun with this... redbull air race with TrackIR with all the settings up is just too real. You may get higher performance with affinity mask to 255 and set TrackIR priority 1 notch higher. As for flying in the clouds and the radeon 4870, there is no slow down below 30FPS for me, it's still very smooth and real looking.

[flying_w 58]

I have built a:core i7 940 OC to 3.25GHz with stock cooler12GB ram (cheap 6x2)Radeon 4870vista 64Results before OC and FSX tweak yield about 30FPS maxed out settings (except traffic and including bloom and dx10 with SP2) on 1280x1024. CPU reached ~50%, it had what seemed to be default Affinity Mask of 15.Results after OC and FSX tweak yield well over 40FPS with maxed out settings and even the traffic up, CPU reached 95% because I set Affinity Mask to 254, this sets FSX to use 7 of the 8 available CPU threads and I left one for my TrackIR. Setting Affinity and clocking 250MHz up really affected performance, and I cannot stop having fun with this... redbull air race with TrackIR with all the settings up is just too real. You may get higher performance with affinity mask to 255 and set TrackIR priority 1 notch higher. As for flying in the clouds and the radeon 4870, there is no slow down below 30FPS for me, it's still very smooth and real looking.

That's an interesting outcome given that SP1 disabled hyperthreading for FSX due to thread collisions. While I can't see how, perhaps the situation is different with i7. CPU = 95% on all cores/threads? What part of the world are you looking at for 40FPS? And can you make a comparison with your previous system?

[Guest FSYoda]

That's an interesting outcome given that SP1 disabled hyperthreading for FSX due to thread collisions. While I can't see how, perhaps the situation is different with i7. CPU = 95% on all cores/threads? What part of the world are you looking at for 40FPS? And can you make a comparison with your previous system?

I didn't have a previous system, this is one I build for other person. The location I flew was the location of redbull air race mission in FSX, not something like JFK and with default scenery generation, nothing special. Yes indeed the processor will be >92% with affinity set to 254, if set to 255 and priority higher for TrackIR, it slows actually. Do you have reference to where it is said that SP1 disabled hyperthreading? I fly SP2, I do not understand how an application can tell the difference between a processor and a hyperthreaded portion of a processor? It seems like the OS makes that transparent and presents it as 8 cores. Thanks.