CPU performance on newer Intel, W/ e-cores

[Whitling2k]

Now then!  I appreciate this is an old game, but I occasionally pick it up and play a few Tormented Space maps.

I recently upgraded my PC from an Intel i7 6700K (4+4 core), to an i5 14500 (6+6 performance and 8 efficient cores).  Same everything else (GTX 1080, 16GB DDR4, SSD etc).

I had no bother running CW3 on my old CPU, with some crazy large and busy maps with 100s of units.  On my newer CPU, my framerate starts to drop after something like 100 units. 

Any advice?

[Karsten75]

Apologies for the slow response - we're all preoccupied with the release of the next game: CW-IXE

Bear in mind that CW3 essentially uses a single core. I'm not sure how your processor decide whether to allocate an E- or P-core to an application. I'm not sure if your processor is not thermally throttled. There could be any number of issues.

Do you have any benchmark data that says there is not an intrinsic performance issue with your machine after the upgrade?

Also, have a look at this comaprison: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2565vs5835/Intel-i7-6700K-vs-Intel-i5-14500

[Whitling2k]

No need to apologise, I appreciate the reply :-)

I was aware CW3 is essentially single core, and tried manually setting affinity to a performance core - but that seemed to slow the game even more.  Performance viewer does show several cores being used by CW3.exe- who know what Windows is up to there!

My newer CPU does have a lower base-clock, which could affect performance in single threaded tasks - but it does boost to 5ghz whilst running the game.  Benchmarks show the cpu running OK:   (old | new)

I don't think it's due to thermal throttling - because task manager shows cores running at full speed, without the fans going crazy like they do with heavy multi-threaded tasks - but I haven't delved into the temps yet.  It happens right from launch too, so it's not starting OK, then progressively throttling as temps shoot up.

Every application, single or multi-threaded runs much quicker, apart from CW3 for some reason.  I tried to live with it, but even fairly small maps with moderate numbers of units make the game fairly unplayable.


It's a strange one - I'll play around with core affinity setting a bit more, but at least I know I'm not chasing a known and unresolvable bug - I had wondered if a known conflict with modern hardware might be the cause :-)

CW-IXE looks great by the way.  Next level fluid dynamics.  Imagine that in full 3d!

[Karsten75]

As an interesting test, try the CW: IXE demo and see if you see performance issues. 

If I could advise, I'd not try and hard-assign the game to p-Cores. that type of thing usually leads to non-optimal results in the long run in my experience. But then, this is the "new, less improves, Intel", so who knows?

The multiple cores that you observe is most likely just the CPU shifting execution between cores  that is normal. The maximum CPU utilization of the game should not (in terms of previous, uniform core type CPUs) be 
 100/core count
Not sure how that is affected by the e-Cores and P-cores business. But you should see multiple cores active and utilization being as indicated above. 

[Whitling2k]

As an interesting test, try the CW: IXE demo and see if you see performance issues.

Absolutely fine.  The demo is obviously limited in terms of units, but with lots going on on the 3rd mission, and all possible units deployed, the fps counter/feel of the game didn't drop at all at any point!

It took me a while to figure out what the heck was going on - but I think I got there in the end :-D

Taking another strategy, if I were to completely remove the game & config files (keeping my saves), what would I need to delete after a steam uninstall?

[Karsten75]

I'm not exactly sure what you should keep or delete to do as you wish. I doubt it'll have any effect, but if you want to try it, go ahead. Look in the Support board for a few pinned topics on CW3 files. Take a backup, then delete stuff and if things are broken, you can restore directories from your backup. I'm pretty sure it'll not make a difference, but I may be wrong. 

Good luck.