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

 

Maybe the developers have not added support for quad core processors?

I seriously doubt this though but interesting post. I have installed ME3 but have yet to seriously play it(only played for like 10minutes). From recollection the fps was no problem at 60 fps with everything on.
I have also disabled core parking and found this helped with stuttering in games.

Perhaps there is another issue at play here? What is your HDD like is it SDD?

 

taken from my reply in the "Games and video cards" section.
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.

 

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

 

That sounds more like the FPS I'd expect to see. Not to worry though, the power saver setting seems to get everyone at least once or twice