So... How many cores does Planetside 2 use?

[ccovemaker]

Hello All,

As the title states I was wondering if anyone was as curious as I am as to CPU performance in Planetside 2.

In case you don't know it is a MMO FPS from Sony that came out last month.

Planetside 2 defiantly earns the first "M" in MMO as in MASSIVE, featuring battles player character up to the server cap of 2000 people.

While I have likely never seen all 2000 at once at the same place at the same time I see 400+ person battles daily.

While the game as been panned by some for not being "optimized" enough but its operating in a scale that has just not been seen at this quality.


Basically the game is a swift kick in the nuts to older machines.


I am shopping for a new CPU. My trusty Phenom has serve me well through the years and still play most games on high or better.

It does good in 10 man raids in WoW. It does passable in 25 man raids in WoW. It is kinda fails by the time you get to a 40man Sha raid in WoW.

Scale that to a 400 person battle in Plantside 2 and a can get 15-20 FPS min. frame rate on medium,

Which everyone knows in a FPS is a killer.


Researching what is failing me I run with MSI afterburner and the Task Manager up during combat on my second monitor.

My video even during to worse of it is generally about 60% usage.

The processor is running on 3 cores at <80% during peak.

And rather than being not optimized it looks as though it leaves 1 core open for background task and pounds the other 3 available cores.

Basically I am finding during large battles Planetside 2 is probably the most CPU demanding game I have ever seen.


I am wondering many other Planetside player have taken a look at this?

The whole "games only use 2 cores and anything more is waste" seems to not apply here. If I turn 2 cores off in the BIOS and attempt to play the game it become all most unplayable.


I am also wondering how the utilization looks on the multi-core monsters from Intel and AMD?

6 cores with HT.
8 cores 4 mods.

I am wondering what the usage looks like then.

Thoughts and comments are welcome.

 

[ccovemaker]

And before the devolves into a endless I5 vs FX thread notice I didn't request who made the high core count processor.

I found it interesting that there was a game that was well threaded.

I am as interest to see the I7 vs I5 numbers or the I7 with HT on or off.

I am interested to see if the game uses more than the 4 I give it now.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Is there a demo or a benchmark I could download, as I don't own the game?

 

[ccovemaker]

It's free to play.

http://www.planetside2.com/

 

[technoholic]

Nice topic. BF3 is also another example for multi-core aware game though i only saw single player benches not multiplayer and multi-cores do much better there. Threaded game engines are needed more and more as the hardware supports that but the games, which are very suitable for this approach, are getting left behind and i honestly don't like the truth why there is so few around

 

[kyzarvs]

Just out of interest - GPU and screen resolution?

No point upgrading CPU if you are running a GTX430 at 1024x768 for example

Don't know if it's the same but I found 200+ people events in EQ were limited by video Ram, hard drive speed and system RAM (texture load issues), but I don't know anything about the PS2 engine, so those problems may have been overcome.

 

[ccovemaker]

Just out of interest - GPU and screen resolution?

No point upgrading CPU if you are running a GTX430 at 1024x768 for example

Don't know if it's the same but I found 200+ people events in EQ were limited by video Ram, hard drive speed and system RAM (texture load issues), but I don't know anything about the PS2 engine, so those problems may have been overcome.

Its is a XFX-7770 running at 1920x1080.

Which is new but by no means beasty, in its defense is has won the best value in its price range on Tom's reviews most of this year.

Like I said from monitoring the usage it does not seem to be the culprit.

Its on the list to be replaced after the mobo and CPU, it will upgrade my girlfriends gaming rig.

 

[Motaka]

There is a new optimisation patch due in january.A lot of people using both Intel and AMD are having issues with the game.DX9 init.

 

[bumnut53]

Apparently Planet Side 2 mainly runs on 1 core but uses additional cores for effects, ect. My friend has a Phenom 2 955, I have an i7 950. We both have the same Sli 570's and I get 20 - 30 more FPS than him.

Im gaming at 2560 x 1440 and my friend 1920 x 1080, and I still get way more FPS.

 

[ccovemaker]

So basically. I tried to get a screen shot of the usage. Being that is was like 9am I really didm't get the platoon v platoon action I was looking for but I believe this should show what I am talking about.

 

[ccovemaker]

Pretty consistent pretty solidly busy.

 

[AiRbOrN]

I was looking into the same thing for a friend of mine upgrading from a Phenom II 925. I came across this link and wanted to help you out that I have found only a performance review by a russian site that someone was able to post at here: http://forums.videocardz.com/topic/188-planetside-2-performance-test/

I wish we could get more performance reviews of Planetside 2 because it is quite an awesome revolutionary game to play that needs to take advantage of the new 4+ core cpus.

 

[darksparten]

Planetside is one of the few games, along with it's cousin, Battlefield, that actually utilizes i7 hyper threading and FX Bulldozer module technology.

This is one of the few cases, in gaming at least, where FX and i7 make a noticeable difference compared to an i5 or Phenom II.

 

[ccovemaker]

I am still hoping i can get someone with a I7 or a 8350 to show me that sparten.

Would be nice to know if it was worth the $100 for the 3770K vs 3570K.

Or better yet have Tom's test it.

 

[meintool]

i have a first gen core i7 920 2.97ghz w/turbo boost, overclocked to 3.2ghz, planetside 2 utilizes all 4 of my physical cores and all 4 of my virtual cores but the game only utilizes 25-30% of my total cpu which causes choppy and framerate jumping game play. I'm also using a vanilla xfx gtx 285 slightly overclocked to 670 core 1512 shader 1300 memory, at the warpgate i get between 40fps and 70fps during large battles it varies from 15fps to 40fps usually much lower when in or around buidlings. the lowest framerate spikes happen when i move my mouse quickly in 1 direction, in aircraft i can get 60-130fps, I'd say planetside 2 is poorly optimized and i am fairly disappointed with the way it performs on my computer

just a note my framerate window states [GPU] when at the warpgate and in aircraft. but states [CPU] when in large battles(still only utilizing 25-30% of my entire cpu yet utilizing all 8 cores)

 

[ccovemaker]

Well me new motherboard is on the way here so I am sitting with the choice between the 3570k and the 3770k. I am hoping to swing the 3770k if for anything to play with for this kind of thing.

Thanks for help all.

I should have my own in sight to add here in a week or two.

 

[gamerk316]

Planetside will use as many cores as is available.

...oh, you really mean "how many cores will do any meaningful amount of work"?

 

[ForeShadow]

I noticed that Planetside 2 only uses 2 cores and does a shitty job at that with AMD at least.

I have an AMD 1055T (6 cores) and the game will sometimes bottleneck my FPS because of CPU. But when I check my CPU performance, it is only at 33%. None of the cores are topped at 100%.

 

[ccovemaker]

Odd I was not running anything major in the above screen shot. What is the rest of your system ForeShadow?

 

[eselar]

Apparently Planet Side 2 mainly runs on 1 core but uses additional cores for effects, ect. My friend has a Phenom 2 955, I have an i7 950. We both have the same Sli 570's and I get 20 - 30 more FPS than him.

Im gaming at 2560 x 1440 and my friend 1920 x 1080, and I still get way more FPS.

Definitely because his phenom is bottlenecking the SLI setup, might let him know that hes wasting money!
tell him to upgrade that old thing

 

[i4y]

I noticed that Planetside 2 only uses 2 cores and does a shitty job at that with AMD at least.

I have an AMD 1055T (6 cores) and the game will sometimes bottleneck my FPS because of CPU. But when I check my CPU performance, it is only at 33%. None of the cores are topped at 100%.

I'd advise you to get the Disable CPU Core Parking Utility from this guy:
http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility

 

[8350rocks]

Ok, as a game developer I can weigh in here...

PS2's defining strength is also a MASSIVE inherent weakness.

400+ player battles are MURDER on GPUs. Even if your GPU can run the graphics fine, that's not the issue.

Every PC running around in that match requires floating point calculations per second from your GPU + CPU. For a 60 man match, you need as much TFLOPS as a HD 7950 can provide in a standard MMO (2.9 double precision TFLOPS). Multiply that number by 6 and you can see...you'd have to have Crossfire'd 3 HD 7990 cards to be able to do all the TFLOPS calculations you'd need to do and have any breathing room for larger battles.

Now, my recommendation is this...since your CPU is honestly not taxed...it's not the issue.

You need more TFLOPS...your HD 7770 has only 1.28 TFLOPS of single precision calculations.

If I were you, I would try to get as big and bad a GPU as you can get your hands on. My personal choice would be HD 7970 GHz edition...however, a massive GPU upgrade will make an enormous difference on your end. You need the calculation power to run that game. A good bump up for the money would be a HD 7870XT if you can find it, it's nearly a HD 7950 for about $250.


EDIT: All of you having trouble with FPS on PlanetSide2 need to get some seriously massive GPU upgrades. It isn't your CPU bottlenecking...the game is not CPU bound at all. The issue is, the game requires TENS of TRILLIONS of floating point calculations per second in large battles.

 

[AdmiralAndrew]

Ok, as a game developer I can weigh in here...

PS2's defining strength is also a MASSIVE inherent weakness.

400+ player battles are MURDER on GPUs. Even if your GPU can run the graphics fine, that's not the issue.

Every PC running around in that match requires floating point calculations per second from your GPU + CPU. For a 60 man match, you need as much TFLOPS as a HD 7950 can provide in a standard MMO (2.9 double precision TFLOPS). Multiply that number by 6 and you can see...you'd have to have Crossfire'd 3 HD 7990 cards to be able to do all the TFLOPS calculations you'd need to do and have any breathing room for larger battles.

Now, my recommendation is this...since your CPU is honestly not taxed...it's not the issue.

You need more TFLOPS...your HD 7770 has only 1.28 TFLOPS of single precision calculations.

If I were you, I would try to get as big and bad a GPU as you can get your hands on. My personal choice would be HD 7970 GHz edition...however, a massive GPU upgrade will make an enormous difference on your end. You need the calculation power to run that game. A good bump up for the money would be a HD 7870XT if you can find it, it's nearly a HD 7950 for about $250.


EDIT: All of you having trouble with FPS on PlanetSide2 need to get some seriously massive GPU upgrades. It isn't your CPU bottlenecking...the game is not CPU bound at all. The issue is, the game requires TENS of TRILLIONS of floating point calculations per second in large battles.

Planetside has a feature that allows you to see your framerate and what is bottlenecking the performance in real time. And almost always it's the CPU. Decreasing graphics settings and thus allowing the gpu to be taxed more with FP instructions doesn't help. Somehow it's still the CPU that is bottlenecking the game.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Ok, as a game developer I can weigh in here...

PS2's defining strength is also a MASSIVE inherent weakness.

400+ player battles are MURDER on GPUs. Even if your GPU can run the graphics fine, that's not the issue.

Every PC running around in that match requires floating point calculations per second from your GPU + CPU. For a 60 man match, you need as much TFLOPS as a HD 7950 can provide in a standard MMO (2.9 double precision TFLOPS). Multiply that number by 6 and you can see...you'd have to have Crossfire'd 3 HD 7990 cards to be able to do all the TFLOPS calculations you'd need to do and have any breathing room for larger battles.

Now, my recommendation is this...since your CPU is honestly not taxed...it's not the issue.

You need more TFLOPS...your HD 7770 has only 1.28 TFLOPS of single precision calculations.

If I were you, I would try to get as big and bad a GPU as you can get your hands on. My personal choice would be HD 7970 GHz edition...however, a massive GPU upgrade will make an enormous difference on your end. You need the calculation power to run that game. A good bump up for the money would be a HD 7870XT if you can find it, it's nearly a HD 7950 for about $250.


EDIT: All of you having trouble with FPS on PlanetSide2 need to get some seriously massive GPU upgrades. It isn't your CPU bottlenecking...the game is not CPU bound at all. The issue is, the game requires TENS of TRILLIONS of floating point calculations per second in large battles.

you could listen to all that misinformation.....or you could get some facts.....

http://forums.videocardz.com/topic/188-planetside-2-performance-test/

Runs best with Intel cpu's and Nvidia gpu's. the i3 2100 outperforms the fx 8150 and phenom x6.

BUT some people have had success with this:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3015703
http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility
maybe it will help.
a planetside tweak guide: http://thelonegamers.com/complete-guide-better-planetside-2-performance/
All this through 3 minutes of google............

 

[raimotion]

Just out of interest - GPU and screen resolution?

No point upgrading CPU if you are running a GTX430 at 1024x768 for example

Don't know if it's the same but I found 200+ people events in EQ were limited by video Ram, hard drive speed and system RAM (texture load issues), but I don't know anything about the PS2 engine, so those problems may have been overcome.

You sir are a retard, No EQ where not limited by video ram or hard drive speed or system ram.. ITs the grapichs engine in the game that where crap. Get your facts right, EQ still lags in big raids even on machines that is from now, its a limit in the engine that has nothing to do with your PC's hardware. EQ had one of the worst optimized grapichs engines ever build. new games with similar problems is Rift it does not matter how awesome your machine is the engine can only use 2 cores on your cpu at max and thats what limits your grapichs card not the card itself. Even Tomshardware posted alot of reviews where you see grapichs card's being limited by engines that does not use your CPU 100% and alot of games does not do that today cause programmers are alwayes 1-2 steps behind hardware... its natural as it takes 1-4 years or even more to develop an AAA titel game.

EQ lags just it has to do a couple of diffrent smoke effects or water reflections or spell particals. But okay its an old engine. But you can easy get EQ1 to lag even on machines from today. And thats not cause the machine can not run the grapichs LOL

People like you should stop posting what you think is correct and let the people that knows what they talk about post so people do not get dumber and dumber.

I rest my case stop posting stuff you know nothing about!.