CPU Threading Tweak

[kuroyume87]

Hi all! I am in the process of installing Skyrim revisited. My rig isn't that powerful (laptop -.-) So I am being very selective, especially on the retexture mods side.

 

Anyway, today I tried the "CPU Threading Tweak", this one: [General] iNumHWThreads=X. My laptop CPU is an I5 dual core with hyperthreading, so instead of "X" I inserted the value "2". Well, I am sure the tweak does something. In fact, as soon as the save game load up ends and I switch to the "real" game, I get a black screen and the game stops responding. I tried using the value "02" and I get the exact same problem. With "03" (just for the sale of trying) the game loads normally, but I suspect that way I get no real effect on the CPU usage. Ehm... any idea about what the problem may arise from? The only thing in my setup that is different from skyrim revisited is that I use just a portion of the mods listed on that guide, and I use Ulo (a SweetFX preset) instead of an ENB, just to keep my average outdoor fps above 30.

 

Also, I have another dubt. I noticed many other ini tweaking guides feature a different CPU threading tweak: instead of "[General] iNumHWThreads=X", "[HAVOK] iNumThreads=XX". Had anybody noticed that? Can anybody enlighten me whether they are both the same, or if instead the second one is plain wrong? I shall add I tried that one too. No black screen or freeze, but apparently no change in fps either, not even a slight one. I can't understand whether it works or not.

 

Sorry for my bad English, and I am eager to hear the community opinions on this issue

[Aiyen]

For all intents and purposes they all do nothing that affects performance in measurable ways. At least we have never had any reports about it.

You are actually one of the first to report an issue with them, which I find a bit interesting. But I guess the issue would arise because it is the wrong number of cores that you have put in. I forgot if it is a number of physical cores or virtual ones that goes in there.

[Neovalen]

Physical and obviously SR:LE is still in work which is where he got the tweak from. It may disappear, it may stay, point is SR:LE is in flux daily.

[kuroyume87]

@ Neovalen You are right to point that out, sorry. I posted this just cause I was curious about the strange issu that arised. I suppose it means the tweak DOES indeed trigger "something", or else it wouldn't black-screen my game. So apparently no one else experienced anything similar. -.- This damn HP laptop really keeps being the best when it comes to random crap happening -.-

 

And what about the "similar" tweak from other ini tweak guides? Is that plain wrong?

 

Ps Thanks for the answers!

[Aiyen]

They are not "wrong"... they just do not seem to actually improve performance in any tangible ways.

Hence the mantra "less is better" normally applies since if you do run into issues down the road, then it is not because of that.

 

At least that is the way I see it! If something does not seem to do anything then no point in adding an extra layer of complexity.

 

Also thanks Neo! :)

[TheMetaName]

For what it's worth, my game seem much less stable after I tweaked the inis to get multithreading. I stress *seemed* because I know that it shouldn't have had that affect, but it did seem much more likely to crash with it on than with it off. (For the record, my game wasn't very stable to begin with and I used more than that tweak: I used the whole "Multiple CPU Core PC " section at https://itcprosolutions.com/skyrimguides/tweak_guide.htm#multicpu but nothing else.)

[Aiyen]

Perhaps you are right. At least we have never had any records of those settings increasing stability of the game. But again it might also just be the psychological effect of knowing they are there.

 

At least now you have tested and know for yourself! :)

[EssArrBee]

Well, the engine probably supports multithreading, but there isn't any functions written that call on it. It's kind of the 'great hardware is nothing without great software' conundrum.

[Rune11]

For what it's worth my game seem much less stable after I tweaked the inis to get multithreading. I stress *seemed* because I know that it shouldn't have had that affect, but it did seem much more likely to crash with it on than with it off. (For the record, my game wasn't very stable to begin with and I used more than that tweak: I used the whole "Multiple CPU Core PC " section at https://itcprosolutions.com/skyrimguides/tweak_guide.htm#multicpu but nothing else.)

I'll second this, almost word for word.  Mine wasn't very stable to begin with either, but it also *seemed* a bit less so when I had the multithreading tweaks applied.  In builds past (before the wonders of S.T.E.P. and SR), I had experimented with these tweaks as well as some of the background loading tweaks.  I don't remember any real difference in stability but after running a bunch of benchmarks and the like, I could never detect any discernible difference in performance, at least not as far as framerate is concerned.  And I have tried these tweaks on a few different builds.  In short, I'm not sold on them at all...but they do have a nice placebo effect I think :D