Old Right Member
Banned
What currently used engines are the most CPU limited? Which game engines show little difference between running on a 2.5 GHz dual core processor versus a high-end Core 2 Quad or an I7?
Most CPU intensive games
- Thread starter Old Right Member
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Solitaire engine. Maybe Tetris. Any NES, SNES, N64, PS/PS2 emulator is also entirely CPU limited.
More seriously, mainstream 3D PC games shift back and forth depending on the settings you choose. Most games can see a CPU bottleneck if you remove enough graphical options; most games can also be moved entirely to a video-card bottleneck if you enable enough graphical options. The significant majority of games are not optimized for >2 cores -- with some notable recent exceptions such as GTA4 and Saints Row 2, both of which are epitomes of non-optimized PC gaming in their own right.
The reality is, most games will not be "bottlenecked" by one single component as an overall charge. There might be frames where the limiting factor was fillrate, another frame where the limiting factor was main memory lookup, another frame where the CPU was the slowest contributor. This is why doubling the speed or capacity of one component never yields a similar increase in gaming performance.
More seriously, mainstream 3D PC games shift back and forth depending on the settings you choose. Most games can see a CPU bottleneck if you remove enough graphical options; most games can also be moved entirely to a video-card bottleneck if you enable enough graphical options. The significant majority of games are not optimized for >2 cores -- with some notable recent exceptions such as GTA4 and Saints Row 2, both of which are epitomes of non-optimized PC gaming in their own right.
The reality is, most games will not be "bottlenecked" by one single component as an overall charge. There might be frames where the limiting factor was fillrate, another frame where the limiting factor was main memory lookup, another frame where the CPU was the slowest contributor. This is why doubling the speed or capacity of one component never yields a similar increase in gaming performance.
Old Right Member
Banned
I remember Supreme Commander was pretty CPU dependent, but what about any other game engines?
Does GTA 4 show a huge difference between an i7 920 and a Phenom X4 at 2.6 GHz? Did the patch take care of pretty much everything, or is there a lot of graphic corruption and instability left?
Blazkowicz
Legend
I remember Mafia was totally CPU limited.. I ran it with 4x AA on voodoo5 and 16xS AA on ti4200! and very decently.
EQ2. lol. Seriously I think that game does an awful lot on the CPU. I've watched friends get in big battles and seen Core 2 + 8800GTS setups drop into the single digits. Considering the game came out before the GeForce 6800 (friends played it on GF4 & R9700 initially), I'm guessing it's not exactly GPU limited. I get the feeling that it does things on the CPU that should be on the GPU but doesn't because they couldn't assume everyone would have a capable GPU.
MMOs can do that for the most part. For instance in WoW if you gather up 40 people and raid a capital city you're going to see single digits on the most power of machines.
Chess.
A clasic RTS game, such as C&C Gold for example is much more complex than chess, if one were to tune AI for maximum efficiency (as chess games try to achieve).
On the other hand, chess games such as Chess Titans included in Vista are pretty okish iregarding cpu power requiremens. So i would conclude that strategy games have the potential for being mostly cpu limited, but often don't
I disagree in terms of complexity. A chess engine (apart from trivially following an opening book) should always be increasing its search tree depth irrespective of whose move it is.
Not sure you're remembering correctly. The GF 6800 came out in summer of 2004 and EQ2 wasn't released until that November. But, yea, it's pretty much a DX8 title, too many passes with its lighting model that could be reduced if the game's engine used DX9/10.
Crysis loves a lot of CPU power even though its GPU limited most of the time. If you have a lot of GPU power though then Crysis will benefit. It will also help smooth out the lows almost reagrdless of CPU power.
Farcry 2 also loves the i7's but I wouldn't call it CPU limited since it will run fine on a modest dual core as long as you have the GPU hardware. Its whether you think 80fps is worth the money over the 40fps a dual core would provide.
Farcry 2 also loves the i7's but I wouldn't call it CPU limited since it will run fine on a modest dual core as long as you have the GPU hardware. Its whether you think 80fps is worth the money over the 40fps a dual core would provide.
I just remember friends playing it on GF4 and Radeon 9700. And then one friend went out and got a 6800GT that autumn for it. My point really was that it's rather amazing that it still stresses out high end PCs. Although you can often run around the countryside on max settings with no problem, if you get into the right situation, the game will happily drop your system to 5 fps.
I think Go would be the most CPU intensive, if you put it like that.
PhilTaylor
Newcomer
FSX
I suggest Flight Sim might be up near the top of CPU-limited games.
I suggest Flight Sim might be up near the top of CPU-limited games.
"might be"?
nice to see you round these parts Phil!
Not many FS fans around but a great place for you game devs
PhilTaylor
Newcomer
"might be"?
nice to see you round these parts Phil!
Not many FS fans around but a great place for you game devs
yes, it is. and thanks.
the great thing about the new job is it actually gives me time to write code again, like what I am doing on futuregpu.org. and that gives me more to say technically.
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