PC Games running slowly with 4 cores enabled but faster with 2 cores!?

Ok so this is going to sound weird.

Firstly, I am positive that this is not a GPU issue, i have the 6990m in my NP8170 and I think we can all agree that it is way overkill for Mass Effect 3 and SC2.

Tested with Mass Effect 3 and Starcraft 2, it appears my games run slower with all 4 cores enabled than when only 2 are enabled.. anyone know why this is happening?

The task manager shows that the core usages are less than 50% across the board when all 4 are enabled, however in game I only get around 22-25 fps in ME3 (about 1 - 5 fps in SC2),

Conversely, with only 2 core enabled for ME3, I am getting 48-60fps; with some slowdown in highly populated or long view distance areas (but muchhh better than with all 4 enabled). In SC2, I have to drop it down to 1 core, and then I magically go from 1-5 fps to a rock solid 60fps.

I disabled core parking, that didn't help.

I don't know what or why it's happening, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

- Maximus

 

First off, how did you disable the cores? Second, while I cannot explain what could be causing the massive slow-down in games, these mobile i7's run at a slower frequency when using all 4 cores and reach full speed (TurboBoost), when only one core is doing the work. However, this should not be causing your to slow down that much, if any at all. I play ME3 and aside from disabling core parking, I haven't done anything else to adjust CPU usage and my game runs at a solid 60FPS.

 

having less cores enabled lets the remaining cores overclock to a higher speed via turbo boost.

the other thing that could be happening is the particular game your playing has cpu affinity issues for a multi core cpu. Some older games flat out refuse to run or have major problems if you do not disable affinity for the extra cores.

 

ME3 on my Quad System never has a slow-down, with all 4 cores running. Could there be something else coming into play like Thermal Issues causing Throttling? Are your fans working ok? What kind of temps are you getting?

 

I know for a fact that Starcraft 2 does not fully support quad core processors.

 

There is likely another problem here. When I played SC2 on my Quad, I was getting good performance and I have the same laptop as you. I would run Hwmonitor during gaming to see what the temps are like. I agree with 'TheBluePill', it could be throttling issues.

 

Hardly any games fully support Quad and some of the ones that do, benefit from it because they were poorly coded or badly ported, for example GTA IV.

 

PROBLEM FOUND.

Power profile set to Power Saver, even plugged in, it was set to reduce the processor speed before turning on the fans.

Stupid.


Now I get 60 fps on Extreme in SC2 w/ all cores enabled and rock solid 60fps in ME3 w/ all cores enabled.

Sorry for the dumb question, and even dumber solution, thanks for trying guys!

-M

 

No such thing as a dumb tech question like this. The main thing is, you found the problem and fixed it. Kudos.

You post also serves as a reminder for EVERYONE to check their power settings from time to time.

 

Indeed, like some say,the only dumb question is the one never asked.

 

The other class of dumb questions is the question that gets asked which was just addressed, but that doesn't apply here