Affinity Setting and FSX?

I have an i7-2600k CPU and 16G RAM. I have HT turned on. My Affinity setting in my FSX.cfg is 84. I see activity in all the 8 windows in the Performance Monitor. Should I see that activity? Sometimes they all max out while loading a flight and scenery. Is this normal?

Also I'd like to know what the 8 windows show. Are they the four physical cores and the 4 virtual cores. If so in what order?

Thanks, Bob.

The OS distributes the loads as it sees fit. You should see some activity in all the core displays and more activity in the displays FS is actually using the most while it is in focus.

Trying to control core distribution completely is a waste of time. There is a limit as to what you can do because FSX boxed was not written for today's hardware and software. Add to that Windows OS also controls the cores.

As long as you are not getting stutters while viewing reasonable scenery density (not maxed on everything) is a reasonable goal. Anything else is a paper chase.

-Pv-

Hi Paul. OK. Thanks.

Do you know what each display shows as to the 4 physical and 4 virtual cores and in what order?

Bob.

Core "0" on the left, then cores 1-7. Cores 0, 2, 4, & 6 are physical.

Your affinity mask setting of 84 = 1010100 Binary. Binary numbers are read right to left.

That mask assigns FSX "affinity" to Cores 2, 4, & 6.

Hyperthreading. HT off generally allows a higher overclock and/or better performance with a lightly threaded app.

Because their is only ONE Physical Execution Unit(PEU) per Physical Core, the 2 Virtual Cores, enabled with HT on, must share that PEU.

While the PEU Virtual Core switching is extremely fast, it does take time.

Miniscule? Yes, but, FSX time nonetheless.

Theoretically that is what hurts overclocking potential. At extreme speeds the PEU switch can't keep up...Don

Theoretically that is what hurts overclocking potential. At extreme speeds the PEU switch can't keep up...Don

Another point is that with hyper-threading active, more of each core may be active more often, increasing the core's temperature. If all cores are running at 100% on both the physical and logical sides, overall temps could be quite a bit higher. This is part of why the Turbo Boost feature starts disabling cores as it raises the clock speeds.

I have an i7 2600K, 3.4 Ghz. Try this:

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=15 //ie: 1111 (1st 4 cores (for 4-core 8-thread CPU)

Also a pic=1K words:

Chuck B

Napamule

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=15 //ie: 1111 (1st 4 cores (for 4-core 8-thread CPU)

All other sources refer to 14 for a 4-core, no HT. I suppose they're all wrong?

Also a pic=1K words

Right... but if yr pic only has words in it ? :rolleyes:

Wim

1110. The '0' is core 0 or 1st core. The core FSX uses. Is this right? I don't know.

Chuck B

Napamule

0 indicates the core FSX will not use. The theory being that the OS can run other tasks on that core. However, unless one specifically sets the affinity mask settings for all running application, the OS will assign threads as it sees fit, including to the core FSX is using.

FSX SP1 or later will happily use all available cores as it needs to. The best starting point is not do anything with the affinity mask unless you are having issues with stuttering or other indications that the sim is fighting for time on a CPU core.