I've got my new PC up and running, though I'm still in the process of setting things up including getting FB installed.

One of the things I wanted to do was to run FB off one side of the core and the other core for my other programs. (Tir, Team Speak etc) I checked SimHQ's search engine for any "How To's" but didn't find anything. Can anyone here tell me how to set this up?

Note: Found one article which I saved a few months ago on how to do it, but I'm not getting the first part of the authors instructions. He has you DL a program called "prioaff.exe" but he doesn't tell you what to do with it or how it works. I DL'd it and ran the exe, but it doesn't seem to do anything or allow changes.

Thanks

This seems to be comprehensive http://il2.netteq.com/Muliti-Core_Guide.aspx

What I couldn't do with prioaff was set the il2 priority to High without it trying to set the Affinity which is already set in the conf.ini. Maybe someone could mod the provided prioaff source and recompile? The coding looks admirably simple.

smoker

Assign IL2 to run on core 0
Use this application SMP seesaw Pro to isolate Il2 on core 0 (moves all other processes including system to core 1) You isolate Il2 on core 0 after launching the application and either before you get the splash screen or minimizing it once you do.

Play as normal.

On my setup assigning a priority higher than normal causes stutters because remember that your HOTAS is a separate application and if you have TIR, so is that. You can move TIR and HOTAS onto core 0 in order to insure that one core is dedicated to running every process related to IL2

SB

i looked at this a while ago,has anyone actually found any sort of improvement in any way doing this ?

http://www.geocities.com/edgemeal_software/SetAffinity/index.htm

SMP seesaw pro does the same thing (though not as pretty of an interface) and more efficiently. With just a couple mouse clicks you move IL2 onto one (or more cores if you have a quad) and move everything else onto the remaining core(s).

SB

It appears SMP seesaw does'nt work on quad CPUs- pity.

IL2 wasnt written for multicore technology was it?

MS FSX is a true multicore application and you can set affinities to match your number of cores and even set which cores to run it on. I believe I posted that in the FSX forum.

Unless an application is written to take advantage of multicore technology, there isnt much to gain in distributed processing other than sharing processing power for the other concurrent programs.

FalconAF is another example of a flight sim that does take advantage of multicore technology, but it seems to only get about 15% increase in FPS no matter how many cores are used above 2.

This link states is covers quadcores, but I havent tried it:
http://www.geocities.com/edgemeal_software/Files/Set_Affinity_v1.002a.zip

You need to use SMP seesaw PRO When I bring mine up it recognizes that I have two cores and there is greyed out provisions for 30 more. By right clicking and getting Move to or Isolate on it should reveal how may cores it recognizes. You can see that the application is provisioned to goto 32 cores.

SB

I believe that is true, even though you can set process affinity within the configuration file for IL2. When I have tried to spread IL2 among two cores I have gotten micro stutters. By moving IL2 to one core and everything else to the second (or other three if you have quad). I have been able to largely eliminate micro stutters (driver changes introducing another point for stutters is a separate issue)

IL2 is multi-threaded. You can see by running process explorer that it can have up to 16 threads. But it seems having these threads parsed out among more than one core introduces micro stutters. Increasing priority might resolve this but then you need to insure that other complimentary programs such as your HOTAS and TIR also get the priority boost equal to what you gave IL2

SB

IL2 is a single-core affinity program only.

No benefit. Might even perform worse.

I second that It is a waste of time.

I disagree. Though it is single core affinity, moving it and related processes to one core while moving everything else to the remaining core(s) preempts the possibility of thread competition for CPU time.

SB

I suppose if you're usually playing IL2 with Word, Excel, Firefox, 20+ services running, and a few other programs it might run better if you offload those things running in the background that shouldn't be running anyway to the other core.

Won't give in....will ya?

Try shutting down windows core services or if you have Vista the notorious search indexer which will respawn itself even if you kill the process. Move IL2 to one core with your HOTAS and TIR (if you have it) and then the only reason you will get stutters after that is you have a funky graphics driver or you have the settings too high for your particular graphics card.

Of course....I could be making this all up In which case the scene from "Little Big Man" comes to mind where Dustin Hoffman's character says to General George Armstrong Custer...as Custer contemplates whether or not the "mule skinner" is lying in order to stop him from going down into the Medicine Tail Coulee.

"General!....you go on down there.....but you're not going to find a bunch of old men and squaws like you did at the Washita River.....but 10,000 Cheyenne and Sioux Braves.......you go on down there General.....if you got the guts."

And of course we all know what happened next

SB

if you're usually playing IL2 with Word, Excel, Firefox, 20+ services running, and a few other programs

Tolwyn was being polite.

If you're doing that while flying Il-2 you shouldn't be allowed to own a dual core CPU and there will be an inspection later

Ming

No, I won't give in. I never apologize for being right.

So if that is the case then how come:

I noticed that when I set my ProcessAffinity to 1 I get lock ups when the sim loads to the main screen ... and with PA=2 I do not.. however... with PA=1 I also get:



Note AVG fps of 85...

and with PA=2 I get:

Note AVG fps of 32

Ignore the black bar.. (I think it is because I have my NV set for split frame rendering) that was a screen glitch when I hit PRNT SCR and doesn't show up in the sim when flying.

I would at least like to find a happy medium between the two. The low frames happen no matter which core I isolate the FB.exe to using SMP SeeSaw

It seems as if the deciding factor is where I set the PA in the sim.

This:
- ProcessAffinityMask=0 or ; il uses CPU
- ProcessAffinityMask=1 - IL uses CPU0 exlusively
- ProcessAffinityMask=2 - IL uses CPU1 exclusively
- ProcessAffinityMask=3 - IL uses all CPUs

..is my understanding of how the Process Affinity works in the sim... is that correct? Does anyone know how I can resolve this issue? Or can explain it to me in a way I can wrap my head around it?

This is from another post @ UBI tech.. Now the thing with nmy issue is that when I have the PA set to 1 I get the great frames.. just the lockup on load @ 4 times out of 7... which of course is a drag.. but the smoothness...

When I go to PA 0 or 2 I get the lower frames and microstutters.... So there is something to that PA setting.. I just dont get it.. BTW.. I am running an Fx-60 with a 7950GX2 on 4G or DDR400. No OC..

1. Remember to use SMP SeeSaw PRO....use the Pro version because it will move all other processes except the ones you specify to the "other" core.
2. I think you have the affinity settings for IL2 wrong above (from within the config.ini file). you can only specify 0, 1, or 2 for --- I think 0 = use core 0, 1 = user core 1, 2 = use both cores
3. You can find out what is going on regarding core assignment by using Process Explorer. Use this by minimizing to desktop after you have launched IL2 AND used SMP Seesaw PRO to ISOLATE IL2 to one core (I assign to core 0 by that act you move all other processes to core 1). Then you can move selective processes such as TIR and HOTAS back to core 0 so that now you have IL2, TIR, and HOTAS on core 0 and ALL OTHER processes on core 1.
4 Use process explorer to verify by right clicking on a process within that window (or setting up the display to show your process affinity for all running processes)

As another step --- check your settings within the Nvidia control applet. I do not think IL2 likes GPU multi-threading (according to what I have read elsewhere)

If you are still getting stutters then it is GPU related. You have to adjust your GPU settings AND/OR your graphics settings in IL2 config.ini

Good Luck

SB