Matt Butrovich, slowness in a multithreaded application when all cores are not being fully utilized seems to indicate a problem in the synchronization of the multithreaded algorithm. In particular, either one thread is locking a resource other threads need and it is not unlocking it fast enough or far, far too much locking/unlocking is being done.

Multithreaded algorithms needs to be designed so that the individual threads can operate independently of each other for significant periods of time, rather than insignificant periods of time, as multithreading is a coarse form of parallelism that does not allow much interaction between the individual threads.

Regardless of how your system is configured, I assume that the developers did a very poor job of multithreading their algorithms and if I had to guess what they poorly multithreaded (not being a games programmer myself, but having a professor who is), I would say that it is the collision detection.

"@cd "C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion"
@start "Oblivion" /b /realtime "C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Oblivion.exe""

I've had issues before when a program wasn't coded correctly and while running realtime it would hog all the cpu and causeda catch 22. It ate so much cpu the network stopped working, but it was spooling for a response from the network drivers.

In most multi core systems, this wouldn't be an issue since the network driver would probably be offloaded to a cpu with more "time" on it.

Defragging only helps load times, unless you're low on memory and constantly reading the HD

Hi Matt!

Adisor might try to bring out your hidden mac lover. Don't say you weren't warned ;-).

Hi, welcome to TR. Ignore Meadows and the other resident flamebaiting gotta-win-opinion-arguments-on-the-internet folks.

Good tips. Some game forums have people that know what's going on (and know how to actually solve problems) and others are loaded with what you ran into. :)

Just a little note: AHCI isn't going to bring performance gains in game rigs, but it could bring headaches. I wouldn't recommend people mess around with AHCI unless they need hotplug support (if you use eSATA, say). It also brings native command queuing, but that is useless for single-user workloads.

AHCI can be trouble with some combinations of OS, chipset, motherboard and/or drives. It usually adds boot time because the BIOS will detect the drives in a different manner. And, it could even result in slower drive performance if the drives don't support NCQ properly. This is one of those instances where keeping it simple (by sticking with SATA's legacy mode) is almost always the way to go.

Welcome to TR, Matt. :)

It's good to see you here. BTW thanks for the tips. :)

i wonder if it could be a network issue, and not graphics or CPU at all. maybe the lag is because they have their scene rendering attached to their networking, such that "never get out of sync" is more important than "render 40 PCs and 80 NPCs in real time"

Welcome!

2 words......"Memory Leaks" been seeing this in alot of the new games.

Playing with max settings 4xaa 16x af, and adaptive AA with latest cat drivers on a 4850 with no issues. I don't think I've ever dipped below 30 fps save for massive keep sieges and 100+ pc on the screen.

I used to get bad lag in Morkeins template, haven't in a long time, running smooth in Tor Anroc now.

After reading the report I felt just like the author - I had read another report on performance problems (with this one here being written by a professional).

So here are some tipps that work for me under Windows XP (I am still new to Vista but it should help, too):

o Create an additional hardware profile for gaming. With a new hardware profile one can savefly disable a lot of Windows services (and devices, too). Once you have created a new profile you disable a Windows service through its properties menu for a profile. The next time you boot Windows you then select your gaming profile and thereby disable all service that you do not need when playing games. Should you have disabled the wrong service can you reenable it by booting with your original, first hardware profile making trial&error with the Windows services safe.

o Use a batch script to start your game:

@cd "C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion"
@start "Oblivion" /b /realtime "C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Oblivion.exe"

In this case it is Oblivion. What it does is to run the game as a real-time process and assigns the game the highest system priority possible. This can improve performance and often makes mouse and keyboard input more accurate. Some games do not work with "/realtime" flag and can hang your computer. In such cases try using "/high" or just "/abovenormal".

o Use "TCP Optimizer" from speedguide.net to improve network throughput. This is a small and simple tool to increase send&receive buffer sizes of Windows networking. It also allows disabling the use of timestamps in network packages saving some bytes on each packet.

These tipps do not increase performance a lot (1%-5%) but the sum of it can be noticed with most games that I have played.

A lot more tipps can be found at http://www.tweakguides.com/. These do not work all, of course, but it is a great source of information about what can be tweaked in games via their .ini-files for instance.

Another site http://www.speedyvista.com/services.php explains the Vista background services, which I still need to learn about, but it appears to be a good place to start.

One more and a useful read in case you need a checklist: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2238

There is however no single switch that does it all-in-one, instead tweaking is like garden work.

Defrag, really? A lot of people would argue that makes zero difference.

Welcome Matt, nice post!

It certainly seems like your advice is sound considering the horrible problems that plagued WoW in its earliest days vs. the rock-solid stability of it now.

Hi there.

So, effectively, you're giving irrelevant tips that many gamers are aware of, after stating that nothing helps WHO anyway? Curious.

Warhammer Online will be the next Crysis, we can yell "unoptimized!" at both now.

As noted here earlier on TR in another article, I've always found the "disable services for which you don't know their purpose" method of "optimization" to be pretty friggin' stupid.

Nice. Well said. I think most of us up has tried the snake oil more than twice .

Never played WOW, and lost interest in WAR when I found out it was going to be based on Fantasy rather then 40K....

Good to see a blog on the subject though. Good stuff.

How hard is it to right-click the icon and "run as administrator" for the privileges that PB requires? That's what I do when Enemy Territory gives me lip. And that pain in the ass UAC can remain on to torment me. Everyone wins!

Welcome, Matt. Good to have you.

And let me be the first to say that disabling Vista's UAC can sometimes lead to real performance increases. It's been an issue in my performance testing. Dunno whether it affects WAR, though.

Also, I've seen bad interactions between Cool'n'Quiet, multi-core processors, and Windows XP in certain cases in the past. That's one of the reasons AMD released its dual-core optimization tool. Again, no idea wether WAR is affected. Seems unlikely it would be with a well-patched OS and new drivers these days.

But someone was gonna say it. Might as well be me. ;)