tf2 multicore support! finally!

http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=440

my frame rates in heavy fire seems to have gone up, i'm also using higher settings now.
any performance boosts for you guys?

 

It hasn't been using both cores all this time?

 

Users have had to use unofficial hacks to force the game to use multiple cores and even then those were not sure-fire guarantees.

 

I tried the multi-core, the framerate is better but it crahsed two out of two times in like 10 minutes.

 

i played for about 15min, didn't crash for me, yet .

 

Unstable. Crashed in 5 minutes. Frame rate is also extremely choppy, it keeps jumping from 30 - 200 fps.

They were not unofficial hacks. They were commands that were already inside the Source engine, but were not officially supported by Valve.

 

Played for over an hour with no crash, it seems to work better for me than Mat_Queue which crashed me alot, but maybe I just haven't tested it enough yet.

 

So what's the difference now that Valve has made things official yet users are still reporting crashes with the enabled support?

 

They're still testing it, which is why it's not on by default.

 

I already had a 60fps constant game even with AA on so I haven't seen any performance increase with it on, but I am not crashing so thats good?!

 

You have vertical sync enabled, which is fine. It prevents tearing involved with framerates higher than your refresh rate. If you want to see whether or not you have a performance boost, temporarily disable it and recheck your framerate.

 

Dude, of course.

I can't notice anything above 60fps so if my performance is better now it really doesn't make a difference to me which is what I was trying to convey. SO there is no reason for me to turn vsync off and see if I get 98 frames now instead of 80 frames or whatever.

 

Well there is one reason. To accurately comment on whether or not the patch improved performance. It may not make a difference during your gameplay, but could be relevant at higher quality settings and more intense environments.

 

I highly doubt that statement that you never dip below 60 on a 2.8GHz CPU. My desktop (Before the new official multicore support) with specs in sig would dip into the 40's in some firefights. Even running at 3.6GHz it 100% loads my Core 0. So if I'm CPU choked in 32-player servers, so are you.

Back on the performance topic, I'm running highest visual settings I can at 1680x1050 and I'm seeing bursts into 200+ FPS, with minimum rates in the 90's, no crashes. Update is definitely a winner in my mind.

 

I tried it on my desktop, Quadcore @3.2, 8800GTS and it worked, albeit not noticeable at all. TF2 @ Max everything is not exactly taxing on that system. But no crashes with 4 cores with 2 hours+ of gaming.

However i noticed that their were DX10 settings in the same areas, are these enabled for anybody yet, or is this a future release?

Also i noticed in the update yesterday, in the scores like "Kills" "Deaths" when using the "Tab" key, after "backstabs" there seems to be a new option called "Bonus"

I don't remember this before?

Anybody else?

 

that's some really nice gains! i still need to play it a little more to tell.
this is still experimental, i hope valve can fix all the crashes eventually.

 

Have you disabled vsync?

 

FINALLY.
I'm gonna log on tonight and run some timedemos (if I can) to see what kind of gains I make.
EDIT: OK, timedemos don't wanna run right now.
EDIT 2: Wow. The thing runs a LOT smoother with multicore on. I didn't once drop into the 20s when playing on ctf_convoy like I normally would.

 

Wow bill, there looks like theres some good gains! Though this should have had multicore support at launch

 

I haven't tried this yet, but I hope it's better than the L4D multicore support.

 

I always use vsync but I was like almost 200fps with it off, with it on I am always at 60fps with no dips on my q6600 @3.6ghz and dual 4850 setup.

I have it optimized though with things like 1:1 Ram/FSB divider ect.

I am not a big TF2 fan for some reason but I'll have to update just for the sake of it, there is new 9.3 drivers and the last 9.2 set said up to 20% gain in crysis so I am more interested in seeing how crysis runs now, as that game did pull me under 60 at times (but seems to only use one of my two cards)

 

^
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show off
But yeah, if your game is over 60fps consistantly, you should have vsync on

 

Its not really a option with it off I can hear the fans on my gpus scream and my cpu is at like 100% load instead of 40% no reason to kill my hardware for fps I cant even use.

The main reason I do it though is heat, my room becomes a sauna when I game without vsync, with it on its just very warm

 

With Vsync on I have a noticably different mouse sensitivity, I don't know why but it bothers me. This update definitely brought up my minimum framerate.

 

the update really helped me out. i got a nice boost in frames and no crashes at all.

 

well at least youre sorted for the winter

 

Just tried it, I played for about a half hour with multi core off, in some areas, lots and lots of players on screen it went down to as low as 34fps. Then played some more with multi core on, lowest I saw the frames at was 74FPS, and that was in the same server on the same map with the same amount of players (32) and action going on.

This is on a 3GHz Q6600, 2 HD4850's in crossfireX, etc. Settings on all max, 16xAF, 4xAA, no vsync since I can't play any game with the significant mouse delay it causes, and 1920x1080. And those are the LOWEST frames I saw, the average framerate did go up considerably as well, but it was already over 100fps so that doesn't really matter.

 

Im logging on and updating now. Do you have those 4850's overclocked?

Your setup is near identical to mine except I am at 3.6ghz on my q6600

 

Nope, not overclocked, I only overclock the GPU when the game doesn't get me over 60FPS, like GTA4, in which case I run 690/1118, and I could never get my Q6600 to actually run stable at 3.6Ghz without BSOD'ing within a half hour. And I'm pretty sure I have the same motherboard as you, the P5Q pro, would you mind PMing me your BIOS settings?

 

Heh I have a P5Q Pro also. I could get it stable at 3.6 but it took too much voltage (1.41 or so, I don't remember) so my temps were high. I have a pushpin mounted s1283 and it doesn't seat well enough for me go higher than 3.2 and still be comfortable with my temps (~ 63C prime95 load).

 

I think this update will help the overall experience for people who have less than highend graphics, for example people with notebooks with slower type cpu's I can see this being of great benefit.

 

Mine is the P5Q Deluxe, but its the same mobo for the most part.

The important settings were the load line calibration, I think my voltage is 1.4... I do not remember but my CPU Vid is also much higher than most. I know I am within 10% increase in voltage and thats considered the safe zone.

I was at 3.7 but doing long 100% maxed all 4 cores encoding caused me to crash just one time. That was enough for me to back it down to 3.6ghz. At 3.6 Even doing a full load on all 4 cores for hours at a time its stable. So normal use for sure I will not have a problem.

I'll try to get my bios settings for you later today when I get off work. Also somewhere in my build log I think I have details on my cpu & overclock settings on DTR.

Edit: I found it - http://forum.desktopreview.com/showthread.php?t=234528&page=8

My CPU VID is 1.313 and my Voltage setting is 1.42

My overclock used to be 400fsbx9 but I later changed it to 450x8 to get a higher ram bandwidth.
My RAM is 1:1 so its DDR2 900Mhz with timings of 5-4-4-12