Fix: Performance sucking on Dual Core and HT CPUs
wes_h:
I thank you appreciate am glad you took the time to alert us to this. I have an P4/HT computer, and while I never thought my performance was "sucky" (at least since I added RAM), I realized I don't have a good basis for comparison.
I believe I installed everything 100% to spec, and found no difference in performance. So perhaps that is why the update is not universally distributed by MS, as it must have some other factors that contribute. Since keeping up with WTF microsawft is doing is not something I regularly do, pointers like this are of value, to me at least.
Argon:
@amjoie
I'm guessing you still need this because it's still using the same Windows XP kernel (err, well if you want to be technical there are four different kernels: normal, normal Multiprocessor, 4 gigs RAM, 4 gigs RAM Multiprocessor; so you'd actually be using the last), but I can't say from experience. I do know that the latest drivers from Nvidia disable SLI mode with The Sims 2 so you wouldn't get any benefit from having two cards in there :-P
As for Nvidia drivers: I'm using XTreme-G MobileForce XP 97.92 M4 since I'm on a laptop, but they have other variations of it: http://www.tweaksrus.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=67&Itemid=41/
@wes_h
There isn't as big a difference on HT systems, but it helped my desktop with a pretty outdated GeForce FX 5900XT 128 meg video card and 1 gig of RAM. It's a hit and miss with HT cpus.
amjoie:
Quote from: Argon on 2007 March 22, 10:10:12
@amjoie
I do know that the latest drivers from Nvidia disable SLI mode with The Sims 2 so you wouldn't get any benefit from having two cards in there :-P
This is interesting. Is the SLI mode disabled because it caused problems for the Sims 2? Does disabling it solve the blue screen issues, etc? Is it disabled selectively and only for the Sims 2 game, leaving it intact for other things while I am running Sims 2 in windowed mode? If so, then my background processes (like my Desktop Plants on dual monitors, and virus/spyware protection) are still being run off both cards while playing the game, so I would still be picking up efficiency that would give the game more access to available power on the single card. Or am I thinking wrong, here?
Even if I am using only one 8800 card just for the game, I suspect it will still be lightspeed ahead of the 6800 I'm using now. And the quad core has to be faster/more efficient than the Gen 4 dual that I have now. So I think I'll still see some noticeable difference in the game play. Especially since I'll also be doubling my memory. :)
I never knew about your fix, and from what I am understanding, I should have already had it on the Gen 4 dual XPS I've been running. Since I was satisfied with the performance of the game up until Seasons, even without the fix, then I'll probably really enjoy the game on the new XPS 710 H2C. But I would like it to be as optimized as possible. I just hesitate to mess with something brand new, unless I know I should.
Thank you for the driver info. I suppose I'll try running what I get out of the box, and not change drivers unless I experience problems. But I would like to at least be informed of the most stable drivers, so I know where to turn if I do experience problems. Is there some website that would likely have the latest info for this, as it applies to Sims 2? Or is this site about as good as any other?
Argon:
SLI (linking two video cards together to improve 3D performance) can only have one setting at a time, so when the game is running with that profile active, it will be disabled for everything else. I have no idea why they disabled it, maybe there were blue screen problems, all my other computers are more than 3 years old and this laptop only has one 7900 GS so I only know what I read about SLI. Virus and spyware protection has nothing to do with SLI, that's all controlled by the cpu and not the video card.
The game will only use one core out of the four your processor has, but that's not a problem because the background processes are free to use the other three and not interrupt your game. It is possible to use all four for the game, but that's where the studdering and sucky performance comes from, there are sync issues between the different cores so the game slows down to try and correct it (thus the need to set the process affinity; ForceCore does this automatically using the switch you provide).
However, if your new computer is coming with Windows Vista you'll have a whole other set of problems, but the good news is that you won't need the hotfix from Microsoft since it's already part of the OS. There are no good video card drivers for Vista at this point, and The Sims 2 has many graphical glitches.
EDIT: SLI will affect dual monitor displays depending on how you have it set up, if both displays are connected to the primary video card then you will have no problem but if you have the second display connected to the second card with SLI turned on, you will not get any picture on the second display. What SLI does is use the second video card for rendering part of the video, most commonly the picture is divided into the top half and bottom half of the screen. Output is disabled from the second video card because it's being redirected to the first video card so you get a complete picture on your display.
amjoie:
That's good to know about how the monitor needs to be set. Since I have been running two monitors on 256 and I will soon have 768 on each card, running off one card shouldn't ever be an issue. In fact, I don't even see the need for the second card with how I currently use the computer, except for it *might* be needed for Sims 3, and then I would be glad I had it. However, dual cards came as a default (and only) choice with this computer model, so I wasn't going to snub my nose at it. LOL
(Thinking ...) Can I have SLI turned off all the time, and have each monitor pointed to its own card? That way, I would actually be using two cards (even though it certainly seems like overkill). If I have both monitors pointed to just one card, then isn't the second one sitting there like a veal, not being used for anything? I wish I knew more about this (feeling very stupid about now) but I've never had occasion to learn about dual cards, since I've never had them before.
I know the virus and spyware programs, themselves, run off the processor. I was talking about the popup windows that call for a screen refresh. I'm playing along and suddenly my game is shoved to the background so that I can see some little window that tells me I'm protected from an outbreak. My first thought is, "I better be." My next thought is "quit bothering me with the obvious -- I'm trying to play a game, here." I had hoped more graphics card power would mean I wouldn't be interrupted. Sigh. Unless, since you say it is being run completely by the processor, does having three cores not being used for the game mean there is hope??
My particular computer still comes with XP pro intstalled, and only "Vista ready." That suits me to a T. I don't want to touch Vista for at least a year, and maybe more. But I will have to eventually move to it, so I am glad to have a card that is specifically designed to run on it.
Getting back to the fix ... Once I get all my stuff moved to the new computer, I can experiment with the fix on the old computer. If it goes well there, I'll put it on the new one. If I mess up, it won't matter because I'll be wiping the drives on the old computer and reinstalling factory settings before my daughter puts it up for sale, anyway.
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