CPU Core and thread utilisation issue since last Patch?

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@kashlnoda wrote:

Alright, 

My mate has the following rig. 

7850 2GB (950/1375 +20% power) 
i5 650 
Windows 8.1 

Before the latest Battlefield patch he was getting decent fps (60+ smooth) with low settings at 720p. 

Since the update his fps has been dropping to as low as 20, Shanghai isn't playable! The same results 13.12, 13.30 and 14.1 drivers. Which makes me think it must be the patch. 

Using Render.DrawScreenInfo I can see Battlefield is using 4 cores and 2 job threads. Despite the i5 having only 2 cores and 4 threads, so something is very wrong here. In contrast my Battlefield correctly reports that my i7 870 is using 4 cores and 8 job threads. 

I've checked his BIOS and HyperThreading is turned on, so no issues there. 

I decided to give Mantle a go and he's getting fantastic fps now, 60-120 across the board. But of course the drivers aren't tweaks for the 7000 series yet so it will drop to 30fps for a second out of the blue and is prone to crashes, not ideal but playable for sure. 

Something I did notice with Mantle is that Battlefield now reports it is using 3 threads? So it still isn't using 4, and curiously it still reports using 4 cores on a 2 core CPU ?? 

Can anyone shed any light? Something is off here.

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Your perofmrance decrease is caused by something else.

Your CPU usage is totally normal.

You have 2 physical cores. With hyperthreading you have 4 virtual cores.

A thread is just a series of program instructions. My understanding is DirectX limits the number of threads to either the physical cores or half the virtual cores, while Mantle uses one more than that.

All cores 4 virtual cores are still being being used even though there is only 2 or 3 threads running.

phenom II x4 965 @3.8ghz nb@2.6ghz

amd 7870@1.1ghz @1.2ghz

8gb ddr3-ram @1600mhz

win7, 64bit

true that,

bf4 always has been utterly optimized but since the newest patch which allegedly should bump the cpu performance no matter what gui running on i am instead getting the worst framerates ever..

no matter what settings on, it is unpleasantly stuttering, cpu and gpu wise, with some settings tweaked to the lower and especially vsync turned off (which cause awful much tearing then) i am able to achieve +45 squishy fps on some maps but on most other's like "zavod" or "shanghai", the dips even get as low as 30fps, and that almost constantly.

server size, and not a single settings changing the performance outcome,

besides turning lights to medium, hbao off and post processing to medium as well for then getting 1fps each.. trollolol

"siege of shanghai" looks terrible bad anyways in my mind, especially after the building has collapsed and the dust awhirled, and it runs even worse.

i hardly see a correlation between visuals and the actual performance.

.. an intel i7-4xxx cpu might be able to compensate the clunkyness,

but is that really what you want to force the consumers to really to buy into?

i can't and wouldn't spend half a thousand $, on a new cpu, a suitable motherboard, and finally a new windows oem copy,  just for making bf4 run properly on my pc?!

that way i could just buy a ps4, and maybe this is even what ea are aiming for..

but serioussly,  i am staying on pc, if you like it or not.

for a comparision:

with mantle it seems to be running with at constant 60fps on all maps with vsync and all settings turned up as it should be, but gameplay gets interrupted every few seconds as the cpu is spiking extremely..

@star swarm benchmark, i got 200% average fps increase and 300-400% on min. fps

- so i think it atm is primarily in dice's hands to optimize for gpu and corresponding cpu setups more

and that even without mantle, i would have expected improvements with the latest 14.1 or game patch over former builds, so far frostbite3 in bf4 still runs really bad and is not even that visually impressive at all.

a ps4 can handle bf4 better, regarding the performance the pc offers and the roots battlefield traditionally belongs to, being the pc,

i find it awful to see that the consoles have developed to the main platform, as we are playing utterly ported console ports that in this case's performance seems to be bound to having either the one software exclusive (bf4 only) dx11.2 from win8, or the other hardware/software exclusive (atm bf4 only) mantle from amd,

as both provide undoubtedly significant, almost fundamental changes.

as i do have a fully upgraded amd system whilst, i am glad to profit from mantle, when it is done someday,

but i am disappointed by all the seemingly deliberately bad optimization in favor of dx11.2 and even mantle, as nobody can tell me bf4 would really be optimized well,

it is optimized in the way that my cpu runs like at 90% constantly, but this necessarily isn't a good sign as i think that the coding must just really be clunky i guess, not even truely touching the ressources.

so, come on people at ea and dice, start caring about the pc community again, game is out for months, i am still low ranked and barely playing, not even being able to judge about the gameplay really as the game performs like a slide show most of the time anyways...! and i ain't alone with that judging by the other postings that keep getting uped!

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roguetr00per1356 wrote: 

Your perofmrance decrease is caused by something else.

Your CPU usage is totally normal.

You have 2 physical cores. With hyperthreading you have 4 virtual cores.

A thread is just a series of program instructions. My understanding is DirectX limits the number of threads to either the physical cores or half the virtual cores, while Mantle uses one more than that.

All cores 4 virtual cores are still being being used even though there is only 2 or 3 threads running.

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You're right there actually, thought it was reporting my i7 as using 4 cores and 8 threads but it's the other way around.