Team Fortress 2 multi-core options on pc?

[Mad]

Well, i recently bought TF2.
And i waited a long time to try the multi-thread solution from valve. HL2 EP2 runs great, but what about TF2?

The code is there, but its not turned on by default, as there were crashes in some systems.

I wanna know if anyone here tried those, the last rumors ive heard it would only crash on custom maps, which i dont play.

Those are the following commands ive found so far:

r_threaded_renderables "1"
mat_queue_mode "2"
r_threaded_particles "1"
r_threaded_client_shadow_manager "1"
cl_threaded_bone_setup "1"
cl_threaded_client_leaf_system "1"

And whats the best way to bench it between running it on single and multi threaded? Like record a real game demo and test it later. What are the commands to do that?

[Thanakil]

Is that for AMD only? Cause the game seems to use 2-cores (at least) for a Core2Duo.

[John Aiton]

emm, what's the point really?

maxed out at max res tf2 is around 120fps, why bother with the effort?

[cottonvibes]

well dosn't the game run well enough with just 1 core?
i don't think its such a demanding game that it needs full multi-threading support.


anyways, i would get FRAPS, and use the benchmark feature to test the different FPS you get.
i don't think its worth the extra crashes, since the game probably isn't very cpu demanding.

[Mad]

Actually the Source Engine is more CPU than GPU bound. So the better it uses the CPU, the more FPS.
And since i got a really weak dual core...
Just wanted to know if anyone has ever tried that.

[Thanakil]

Originally Posted by Mad

Actually the Source Engine is more CPU than GPU bound. So the better it uses the CPU, the more FPS.
And since i got a really weak dual core...
Just wanted to know if anyone has ever tried that.

Well, I never had TF2 uses my CPU at 100%, and I'm not using a kickass Dual-Core. It's only a E6600, so clocked at 2.4ghz.

In TF2, even tho details are maxed, it never really got over 80% CPU used. Except when loading, where it sometime used 100% (so both cores fully) for a few short seconds.
Otherwise, my CPU usage hover around 60 to 80%.

But again, are you asking that because the game doesn't use both cores for you? Is it a AMD-related problem?

[Mad]

Ok i had sometime today, and decided to test myself. Ive recorded this demo and tested using both set of commands.

Using the single-core(default) commands, and the following ingame bench command: timedemo (name of the demo.dem).

r_threaded_renderables "0"
mat_queue_mode "-1"
r_threaded_particles "1"
r_threaded_client_shadow_manager "0"
cl_threaded_bone_setup "0"
cl_threaded_client_leaf_system "0"

I got these results: 9549 frames 137.645 seconds 69.37 fps (14.41 ms/f) 6.233 fps variability

And using the multi-thread commands.

r_threaded_renderables "1"
mat_queue_mode "2"
r_threaded_particles "1"
r_threaded_client_shadow_manager "1"
cl_threaded_bone_setup "1"
cl_threaded_client_leaf_system "1"

I got these results: 9549 frames 94.636 seconds 100.90 fps ( 9.91 ms/f) 15.094 fps variability

Now you can see a big improvement on fps. Just need to play some more to check stability.

If anyone else wanna try and post the results here, please do so

EDIT: Heres a few steps to easy the whole testing process.
Open notepad and paste the 1st set of commands and save it as score.cfg inside \Steam\steamapps\username\team fortress 2\tf\cfg and the 2nd set as mcore.cfg in the same place.
After you dl the demo, unrar it to \Steam\steamapps\username\team fortress 2\tf\
Launch the game, then type: timedemo mcore.dem and in the end, itll print on console the information you want.

TIP: NEVER alt+tab on TF2, if it doesnt crash (99%) itll cause a lot of strange bugs...

[Thanakil]

What do you do with the cfg after they're all set? How do you make the game switch between one to another...? It won't exactly run both of them at the same time (when playing), so how do you make the game use one?

I tried to make a cfg with the commands, and it work (somewhat).
Basically, on a personal timedemo I went from 60-70FPS to 80-90 fps.
But I'm not sure the cfg were working right, cause it seems to have broken stuff... Strangely.
(most likely not related to the engine not being fully working with the dual-core optimization, some very weird stuff)

[makotech222]

didnt work well for me. i got 60 fps, but it seemed really choppy and i crashed on goldmine.