Multithreading and Quad Core - Page 6

Ustanotbesoham · 08-01-2010, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EastCoastSnipa8U

No relevant, it's the option to allow one to use the audio card they have which is relevant.

So.......... you want them to support hardware that has (potentially) no performance benefit, just so that they can say they support it. However, they should only support the irrelevant hardware YOU specify. Furthermore it will not take any relevant effort on Dice's part to accomplish this. Yeah, that will work just fine. You wouldn't happen to be in senior management at EA, would you?

If you are too stubborn to admit you don't know what you are talking about, that's fine, I can appreciate that. But my list of questions are relevant. Wanna try again?

KRAG-UK · 08-01-2010, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by repii

There is a good benefit of running on a quad core instead of a dual core, which is why we recommend it.

Have DICE optimized Battlefield Bad Company 2 specifically for the Intel i7/i5 range of quad core cpu's?. The reason i ask this is because i have tested Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising with a phenom X4 and a phenom 2 X2 processor and i can't tell any difference in performance, frame rates are about the same, the game looks the same, the physics are the same, nothing is different, a amd phenom dual core runs the game the same as a phenom quad core.

SneakyGunman · 08-01-2010, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustanotbesoham

So.......... you want them to support hardware that has (potentially) no performance benefit, just so that they can say they support it. However, they should only support the irrelevant hardware YOU specify.

No, not at all. Because PC's are dynamic in performance it's a benefit to support standard hardware that's been an industry standard for some time now. I don't see how you could have missed this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustanotbesoham

Furthermore it will not take any relevant effort on Dice's part to accomplish this. Yeah, that will work just fine. You wouldn't happen to be in senior management at EA, would you?

I'm glad you decided to stop playing forum games and just come out and admit the truth albeit as vague as it is. This portion of your post really addresses the former portion. Correct, adding hardware acceleration support doesn't take any relevant effort for Dice. By doing so has the potential to add better immersion and better PC support allows the game to be viewed more positively. Thus the potential for more sales IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustanotbesoham

If you are too stubborn to admit you don't know what you are talking about, that's fine, I can appreciate that. But my list of questions are relevant. Wanna try again?

I'm sorry you feel that way. This only means we can agree to disagree. However, I've addressed your questions one by one in the last few posts (1 1/2 pages) of this thread. You are incorrect to say I've not attempted to address them. What you can believe is that you simply don't like the answers I've provided you. However, you did bring up something interesting about all this. At this point because we've addressed all that we can regarding this issue further back and forth is only chasing of wind or as I like to put it running around in circles.

KRAG-UK · 11-01-2010, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4l3xXx

the CPU will be very important for games that utilize this engine.

Aye, the cpu will be taxed some what with the physics and the audio/effects, i can see why a quad core is recommended for bc2.

Phsycokiller08 · 11-01-2010, 10:39 PM

I just purchased an i7 system and while I realize this is asking a lot will the game also be using hyperthreading I saw mention of it once but can't recall the answer.

repii · 11-01-2010, 11:19 PM

There won't be that much scaling up from quad core to Core i7 with hyperthreading. Though those processors are generally faster & more modern overall, which is a win

flatfroggerx · 11-01-2010, 11:27 PM

Can't beat futureproofing.

Wanny1 · 12-01-2010, 01:25 AM

I'm on i7 and I can say it's the best CPU I ever bought. It's just that good.

S1ngular1ty · 12-01-2010, 03:06 AM

Don't forget you aren't just running 1 game at a time. Your PC is constantly doing stuff in the background which eats resources so having extra threads available for this stuff is always a win win situation.

Having a core i7 can only help not hurt your gameplay.

Salamander · 12-01-2010, 04:57 AM

The one thing which the Core i7 range doesn't have is a big L2 cache. Certain games actually perform worse than say a Q9650, because that has 12mb of L2 cache, whereas the i7 range only has 1mb of total L2 cache.

S1ngular1ty · 12-01-2010, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Salamander

The one thing which the Core i7 range doesn't have is a big L2 cache. Certain games actually perform worse than say a Q9650, because that has 12mb of L2 cache, whereas the i7 range only has 1mb of total L2 cache.

But the i7 has an L3 cache the Q9650 doesn't have.

Salamander · 12-01-2010, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S1ngular1ty

But the i7 has an L3 cache the Q9650 doesn't have.

Yep, though thats why I stated "certain games". The more modern games will run faster, but software from a few years ago is a bit less clear cut. I believe for example that Source based games run faster on Q9650 for example than a i7.

katamakel · 13-01-2010, 02:10 PM

Hi there forum people, I'm one of the audio programmers at DICE responsible for the audio tech in Frostbite. repii sent me here to hopefully clarify some things. So here we go.

1. All platforms we presently target use software mixing in favor of the older hardware mixing engines. For PC, with Windows Vista switching to software mixing to get around hardware limitations and provide more powerful APIs (DirectSound was designed around the old ISA bus) with added support for things like custom DSP effects in the mixing pipeline, we could finally have a unified path for all SKUs. While the hardware acceleration provided by current gaming cards does provide the ability to do limited mixing and some environmental (reverb) effects without much CPU cost, the APIs are restricting (AFAIK, no custom DSP chains in HW) and it would demand much work from our side to work around that, if it's even possible.

2. Looking at some usage metrics at Steam Hardware Survey we can see that only about 3.7% of Steam users have access to any type of hardware acceleration features, although it seems to be increasing slightly. Granted, this is not necessarily the most reliable source, but it's the best one we have access to and it's usually a great indicator of what our target audience uses. Had we relied on hardware accelerating sound cards for our audio engine we would have provided a degraded experience for almost 97% of consumers. We want all our consumers to have an awesome aural experience when playing our games, so obviously we will do what fits that goal best given the resources we have available. We simply can't afford to support more than one path.

3. Regarding availability of hardware to test on, given that we would've gone down that path, I'll simply say that we used to have a discount from that big sound card manufacturer, but several years ago that disappeared. It's not like with Intel and the graphics cards companies who send repii all their new toys

We simply cannot afford to go our and buy lots of cards, which is another upside to software mixing, we don't have to since all our features work on all cards equally. This saves both money and time and allows us to deliver greater quality to all of you.

4. I know PC gamers are constantly looking for that edge over the console crowd, so I'll say this about performance, since this is that type of thread. If you have a faster CPU, our audio engine will be able to do more "stuff" in the same amount of time, and as such provide an even more awesome experience for you guys. This is however not something we would be able to do had we used hardware acceleration, since those resources are the same for everyone (kind of like on consoles, ironically enough). So just know that as you buy better computers, our engine will scale fairly well along with it. Even more so in future revisions of the engine.

5. If you truly want the best audio experience, in any game on PC, focus on finding a sound card with a good DAC and make sure you can turn as much post-processing as possible off and that you have some nice speakers. Any "enhancements" made to the signal after we send it to the sound hardware may introduce unwanted artifacts. Our sound designers take great care to mix the game and even master it thoughtfully depending on the settings available in our in-game options menu, so to get the true intended experience, stay away from additional EQs or other effects. This of course goes for home theatre receivers and TVs when playing on consoles as well. They even author specific content for the LFE, so make sure you turn that woofer up! But who am I to say what you can and can't do with your audio!

I hope this information sheds some light on how we're thinking, and the audio department here at DICE would like to thank everyone in forums and video comments for their kind words about the audio in our games!

Thanks for listening.

Tephra · 13-01-2010, 02:20 PM

What a fantastic, and intelligent post. That was a great read. Thanks for taking your time to finally make a real post

We would love to see more of this type of post.

I loved the bit about "future revisions of the engine"

care to talk about that?

Thanks again, I think most gamers realized sound cards don't make a huge difference anymore.

Sound in Frostbite, is just beyond incredible. It blows away every game I've ever heard. The way certain sounds take priority over others, instead of sounding all smushed... Some great tech going on over there at DICE.

SneakyGunman · 13-01-2010, 02:59 PM

Quote:

2. Looking at some usage metrics at Steam Hardware Survey we can see that only about 3.7% of Steam users have access to any type of hardware acceleration features, although it seems to be increasing slightly. Granted, this is not necessarily the most reliable source, but it's the best one we have access to and it's usually a great indicator of what our target audience uses. Had we relied on hardware accelerating sound cards for our audio engine we would have provided a degraded experience for almost 97% of consumers. We want all our consumers to have an awesome aural experience when playing our games, so obviously we will do what fits that goal best given the resources we have available. We simply can't afford to support more than one path.

Can you provide an exact quote from the steam hardware survey where you are getting 3.7% as I am not finding it? I do see that Realtek HD Audio is most commonly used and is at 40.7% with other common hardware accelerated sound devices.

Quote:

4. I know PC gamers are constantly looking for that edge over the console crowd, so I'll say this about performance, since this is that type of thread. If you have a faster CPU, our audio engine will be able to do more "stuff" in the same amount of time, and as such provide an even more awesome experience for you guys. This is however not something we would be able to do had we used hardware acceleration, since those resources are the same for everyone (kind of like on consoles, ironically enough). So just know that as you buy better computers, our engine will scale fairly well along with it. Even more so in future revisions of the engine.

In what context are you referencing "faster CPU". To a lot of PC gamers this could mean one of two things:
A. Higher CPU Frequency
B. More Cores
Therefore, I ask the question so that it is clear in one regard. However, it posses another question regarding the context the statement was made. For example, what CPU is actually required more so then recommended when such a statement is made?

LekiAmiga · 13-01-2010, 03:11 PM

@katamakel

great post

thanks for the detailed info and thanks to repi for telling you to come here.

P.S. are you one of these 2 crazy audio guys at 2:48?

Battlefield: Bad Company Video Game, Developer Diary: Frostbite HD | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

Salamander · 13-01-2010, 03:15 PM

I have only heard the footage from the PS3 beta (obviously) but the sound I have heard from that is amazing, especially those tank mounted big guns.

B_B_B_Blighty · 13-01-2010, 03:18 PM

Very informative post katamakel , thx for that.

One question if I may.
What kind of filter is used when your soldier's hearing goes funky (after a blast/explosion), is it a low-pass or band-pass filter sweep? or a mixture of both?

LekiAmiga · 13-01-2010, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EastCoastSnipa8U

Can you provide an exact quote from the steam hardware survey where you are getting 3.7% as I am not finding it? I do see that Realtek HD Audio is most commonly used and is at 40.7% with other common hardware accelerated sound devices.

click on "Audio Devices" to see expanded list.

SneakyGunman · 13-01-2010, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LekiAmiga

click on "Audio Devices" to see expanded list.

I've done that. At the heart of my post is why I've asked the question. There are plenty hardware accelerated devices listed which is why I am asking the question.

LekiAmiga · 13-01-2010, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EastCoastSnipa8U

I've done that. At the heart of my post is why I've asked the question. There are plenty hardware accelerated devices listed which is why I am asking the question.

?

Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
(+0.42%) 2.24%

SB X-Fi Audio
(+0.09%) 1.51%

= about 3.7%

KRAG-UK · 13-01-2010, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by katamakel

Our sound designers take great care to mix the game and even master it thoughtfully depending on the settings available in our in-game options menu.

With regards to bc2 pc, in windows vista or 7, any tips/suggestions selecting the sample rate and bit depth. Examples.. 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD Quality) ..24 bit, 192000 Hz (Studio Quality). Or is this totally irrelevant to your audio engine used in battlefield bad company 2 pc version?. Thanks.

VW_05_08 · 13-01-2010, 03:54 PM

My Asus Xonar Essence STX will be glad to hear that Katamakel; as it doesnt have all those fancy xfi thingies, but it's a pretty good DAC

SneakyGunman · 13-01-2010, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LekiAmiga

?
Realtek HD Audio output
40.70%

Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
(+0.42%) 2.24%

SB X-Fi Audio
(+0.09%) 1.51%

etc
...

Which was addressed in the 1st post you quoted. Look there again and you will see why I am asking the question. The percentages are much higher. With my posted added to your it's easily 44.4% not including other audio devices.

Treiptex · 13-01-2010, 08:14 PM

Hardware accelerated sound is a dead and dying path to invest into. X-fi is (imho) a legacy chipset. I already started a thread dedicated to the audio engine in BF:BC2 where Repii was nice enough to point me in the direction of a good DAC as apposed to an X-fi based card.

My HT Omega Claro Halo and Senn PC350 patiently await BF:BC2.

Since this is the Quadcore and multithreading thread I'd like to add that I decided to pick up a Q9550 to replace my E8400 specifically for this game. DICE rarely released any information.. but when they do say something about performance or hardware you better listen.

11-01-2010, 11:19 PM	#131 (permalink)
repii DICE Join Date: May 2009 Location: Stockholm Posts: 275	There won't be that much scaling up from quad core to Core i7 with hyperthreading. Though those processors are generally faster & more modern overall, which is a win 1Bryce1 likes this. __________________ DICE - Rendering Architect - Frostbite Engine blog \| twitter \| i get your fail

12-01-2010, 03:06 AM	#134 (permalink)
S1ngular1ty Elite Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: USA Posts: 7,566	Don't forget you aren't just running 1 game at a time. Your PC is constantly doing stuff in the background which eats resources so having extra threads available for this stuff is always a win win situation. Having a core i7 can only help not hurt your gameplay. __________________ My videos<-----------------

13-01-2010, 02:10 PM	#138 (permalink)
katamakel DICE Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 2	Hi there forum people, I'm one of the audio programmers at DICE responsible for the audio tech in Frostbite. repii sent me here to hopefully clarify some things. So here we go. 1. All platforms we presently target use software mixing in favor of the older hardware mixing engines. For PC, with Windows Vista switching to software mixing to get around hardware limitations and provide more powerful APIs (DirectSound was designed around the old ISA bus) with added support for things like custom DSP effects in the mixing pipeline, we could finally have a unified path for all SKUs. While the hardware acceleration provided by current gaming cards does provide the ability to do limited mixing and some environmental (reverb) effects without much CPU cost, the APIs are restricting (AFAIK, no custom DSP chains in HW) and it would demand much work from our side to work around that, if it's even possible. 2. Looking at some usage metrics at Steam Hardware Survey we can see that only about 3.7% of Steam users have access to any type of hardware acceleration features, although it seems to be increasing slightly. Granted, this is not necessarily the most reliable source, but it's the best one we have access to and it's usually a great indicator of what our target audience uses. Had we relied on hardware accelerating sound cards for our audio engine we would have provided a degraded experience for almost 97% of consumers. We want all our consumers to have an awesome aural experience when playing our games, so obviously we will do what fits that goal best given the resources we have available. We simply can't afford to support more than one path. 3. Regarding availability of hardware to test on, given that we would've gone down that path, I'll simply say that we used to have a discount from that big sound card manufacturer, but several years ago that disappeared. It's not like with Intel and the graphics cards companies who send repii all their new toys We simply cannot afford to go our and buy lots of cards, which is another upside to software mixing, we don't have to since all our features work on all cards equally. This saves both money and time and allows us to deliver greater quality to all of you. 4. I know PC gamers are constantly looking for that edge over the console crowd, so I'll say this about performance, since this is that type of thread. If you have a faster CPU, our audio engine will be able to do more "stuff" in the same amount of time, and as such provide an even more awesome experience for you guys. This is however not something we would be able to do had we used hardware acceleration, since those resources are the same for everyone (kind of like on consoles, ironically enough). So just know that as you buy better computers, our engine will scale fairly well along with it. Even more so in future revisions of the engine. 5. If you truly want the best audio experience, in any game on PC, focus on finding a sound card with a good DAC and make sure you can turn as much post-processing as possible off and that you have some nice speakers. Any "enhancements" made to the signal after we send it to the sound hardware may introduce unwanted artifacts. Our sound designers take great care to mix the game and even master it thoughtfully depending on the settings available in our in-game options menu, so to get the true intended experience, stay away from additional EQs or other effects. This of course goes for home theatre receivers and TVs when playing on consoles as well. They even author specific content for the LFE, so make sure you turn that woofer up! But who am I to say what you can and can't do with your audio! I hope this information sheds some light on how we're thinking, and the audio department here at DICE would like to thank everyone in forums and video comments for their kind words about the audio in our games! Thanks for listening. 1Bryce1 likes this.

13-01-2010, 02:20 PM	#139 (permalink)
Tephra Banned Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 3,464	What a fantastic, and intelligent post. That was a great read. Thanks for taking your time to finally make a real post We would love to see more of this type of post. I loved the bit about "future revisions of the engine" care to talk about that? Thanks again, I think most gamers realized sound cards don't make a huge difference anymore. Sound in Frostbite, is just beyond incredible. It blows away every game I've ever heard. The way certain sounds take priority over others, instead of sounding all smushed... Some great tech going on over there at DICE. Last edited by Tephra; 13-01-2010 at 02:23 PM.

13-01-2010, 03:18 PM	#143 (permalink)
B_B_B_Blighty Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: The Stone-Age Age: 36 Posts: 764	Very informative post katamakel , thx for that. One question if I may. What kind of filter is used when your soldier's hearing goes funky (after a blast/explosion), is it a low-pass or band-pass filter sweep? or a mixture of both? __________________ BF2=Whitey.from.Blighty RIP BF 2002/2006

11-01-2010, 10:39 PM	#130 (permalink)
Phsycokiller08 Rookie Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 26	I just purchased an i7 system and while I realize this is asking a lot will the game also be using hyperthreading I saw mention of it once but can't recall the answer.

11-01-2010, 11:27 PM	#132 (permalink)
flatfroggerx Elite Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 5,183	Can't beat futureproofing.

12-01-2010, 01:25 AM	#133 (permalink)
Wanny1 Rookie Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 65	I'm on i7 and I can say it's the best CPU I ever bought. It's just that good.

12-01-2010, 04:57 AM	#135 (permalink)
Salamander Forum Guru Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: London - UK Age: 31 Posts: 1,374	The one thing which the Core i7 range doesn't have is a big L2 cache. Certain games actually perform worse than say a Q9650, because that has 12mb of L2 cache, whereas the i7 range only has 1mb of total L2 cache.

13-01-2010, 03:11 PM	#141 (permalink)
LekiAmiga Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: UK Age: 30 Posts: 840	@katamakel great post thanks for the detailed info and thanks to repi for telling you to come here. P.S. are you one of these 2 crazy audio guys at 2:48? Battlefield: Bad Company Video Game, Developer Diary: Frostbite HD \| Game Trailers & Videos \| GameTrailers.com

13-01-2010, 03:15 PM	#142 (permalink)
Salamander Forum Guru Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: London - UK Age: 31 Posts: 1,374	I have only heard the footage from the PS3 beta (obviously) but the sound I have heard from that is amazing, especially those tank mounted big guns.

13-01-2010, 03:54 PM	#148 (permalink)
VW_05_08 Rookie Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 395	My Asus Xonar Essence STX will be glad to hear that Katamakel; as it doesnt have all those fancy xfi thingies, but it's a pretty good DAC __________________ My Youtube Channel My Twitter BF2142 Stats

13-01-2010, 08:14 PM	#150 (permalink)
Treiptex Forum Regular Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 540	Hardware accelerated sound is a dead and dying path to invest into. X-fi is (imho) a legacy chipset. I already started a thread dedicated to the audio engine in BF:BC2 where Repii was nice enough to point me in the direction of a good DAC as apposed to an X-fi based card. My HT Omega Claro Halo and Senn PC350 patiently await BF:BC2. Since this is the Quadcore and multithreading thread I'd like to add that I decided to pick up a Q9550 to replace my E8400 specifically for this game. DICE rarely released any information.. but when they do say something about performance or hardware you better listen. Last edited by Treiptex; 13-01-2010 at 08:23 PM.