Working solution for Intel dual core CPUs!
If you're using a dual-core Intel system and pulling your hair out at the crash/freeze before the menu, forum member wolfman2k has found a solution. It's worked on at least 5 people's machines in th...
Forum Discussion
I noticed that when I change affinity while the game is running on my 8 core processor to only 3 cores the game will crash. The game is clearly designed to rely on at least 4 parallel threads. If your dual core processor can handle running 4 parallel threads (like some of the Intel i3/i5 processors) then you can probably run this game as those processors have 2 logic processors per core. Those would likely be the only exception to this rule.
It sucks right now but gamers have been begging for better multi-threaded games for years... apparently very few realized this would eventually mean future titles could require 4 or more parallel threads.
@censurely wrote:I noticed that when I change affinity while the game is running on my 8 core processor to only 3 cores the game will crash. The game is clearly designed to rely on at least 4 parallel threads. If your dual core processor can handle running 4 parallel threads (like some of the Intel i3/i5 processors) then you can probably run this game as those processors have 2 logic processors per core. Those would likely be the only exception to this rule.
It sucks right now but gamers have been begging for better multi-threaded games for years... apparently very few realized this would eventually mean future titles could require 4 or more parallel threads.
The problem is that these games are not becoming optimized for more threads. I would accept it more easily if they were, and I would actually commend EA (or Ubisoft in the case of Farcry 4.) They are just running on different threads because of the architecture of the new consoles. If the new consoles had three-threaded CPU's then the games would be running on tri-cores. Don't expect these games to take full use of a desktop quad or octo-core though, because the console octo-cores are very, very, very weak and are absent of many features that PC CPU's have. The only thing this is evidence of is a lazy port to PC and actually a poorly optimized game overall (consoles are having many performance problems that the PC version has.) As for the thread-count, it seems to be more dependent on certain threads rather than the number of threads. Many people with Quad-Cores had to disabled their threads to get the game to run, and it is likely that they had to disable certain ones and keep others running. That substantiates further that this game is not optimized for more threads, but rather the use of certain threads. And that is silly, all threads are indistinguishable (in these CPU's) other than the code to assign them.
"The problem is that these games are not becoming optimized for more threads. I would accept it more easily if they were, and I would actually commend EA (or Ubisoft in the case of Farcry 4.) They are just running on different threads because of the architecture of the new consoles. If the new consoles had three-threaded CPU's then the games would be running on tri-cores. Don't expect these games to take full use of a desktop quad or octo-core though, because the console octo-cores are very, very, very weak and are absent of many features that PC CPU's have."
I'm not going to put forth any conspiracy theories here... the sheer numer of hardware and software purmutations on PC means you are pretty much guaranteed to find some cases of pretty much any kind of weird behavior you want to hold up whatever theory you find palatable. That is the big downside of PC gaming (hw/sw purmutations). I am able to disable any 4 cores that I want on my 8 core processor, on the fly, and the game keeps running as long as I keep 4 (any 4) on the inquisition process. That would seem to completely undermine your theory that is being assigned to specific cores (if one was prone to looking at anecdotes as evidence). *shrug*
That being said... the places where consoles and PCs overlap is clearly a place where game developers will focus efforts to prevent duplications of effort. This is usually a good thing for all gamers (developers end up with more time to work on more stuff, they get a chance to meet schedules, etc). It becomes a problem when it gets out of hand (inquisition has obvious PC control problems)... but... again... PC gamers have been complaining about games using multi-threaded CPUs poorly for years. You admit as much. If this first major effort to majorly branch out the processing threads isn't a resounding success I don't think any of us should be shocked... that doesn't make it any less of a move in the right direction. The quicker we can move PC gamers to Quad (or more cores) the quicker we can get developers onboard with actually using them. These complaints about Inquisition not working properly on dual core processors is, essentially, a cry to take a step backwards in hardware and software evolution.
@censurely wrote:I'm not going to put forth any conspiracy theories here... the sheer numer of hardware and software purmutations on PC means you are pretty much guaranteed to find some cases of pretty much any kind of weird behavior you want to hold up whatever theory you find palatable. That is the big downside of PC gaming (hw/sw purmutations). I am able to disable any 4 cores that I want on my 8 core processor, on the fly, and the game keeps running as long as I keep 4 (any 4) on the inquisition process. That would seem to completely undermine your theory that is being assigned to specific cores (if one was prone to looking at anecdotes as evidence). *shrug*
That being said... the places where consoles and PCs overlap is clearly a place where game developers will focus efforts to prevent duplications of effort. This is usually a good thing for all gamers (developers end up with more time to work on more stuff, they get a chance to meet schedules, etc). It becomes a problem when it gets out of hand (inquisition has obvious PC control problems)... but... again... PC gamers have been complaining about games using multi-threaded CPUs poorly for years. You admit as much. If this first major effort to majorly branch out the processing threads isn't a resounding success I don't think any of us should be shocked... that doesn't make it any less of a move in the right direction. The quicker we can move PC gamers to Quad (or more cores) the quicker we can get developers onboard with actually using them. These complaints about Inquisition not working properly on dual core processors is, essentially, a cry to take a step backwards in hardware and software evolution.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All you need to do is look at the 83 paged thread. There are multiple people who got the game working by disabling cores not enabling them. Anyway, I'll just say we should wait and see. Both CoD:AW and Far Cry 4 were not working on two-threaded CPU's and now both work on two-threaded CPU's. Dragon Age Inquisition should follow. I'm personally for developers moving development toward Quad-Cores (expect to have a new i5k next year) however I am not for this at the expense of dual-cores when much of the PC market still supports dual-cores today. I would rather a soft-transition as was the case with single-cores to dual-cores: the games just started working slower and slower on single-core CPU's.
Here's a video of FC4 running on a two-threaded CPU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MXLpRs77uI
Many articles on the internet were declaring the release of that game as the death of true dual-cores, but there it is running pretty smoothly.
I fully support folks finding ways to jury rig software to do things they aren't designed to do! I've never said otherwise. Heck... if you can figure out a way to get Inuisition to work on my TI-83 graphing calculator I would kiss you! I just think it's wise to leave the conspiracy theories at the door when possible. I also think it's wise to encourage folks to take minimum system requirements seriously... and not to encourage folks to act all indignant with software developers when the software won't work on systems that clearly don't meet all of those clearly described minimum system requirements. *shrug*
