Multi-Core Processors - Tips & Tricks

magas

Dalayan Beginner
Purpose

Often times, there can be conflicts with applications being handled by more than one CPU, or you may want to control what parts of your computer are doing what. I find this quite useful when two-boxing, but there are tons of other uses for it as well.

Windows

Selecting Processor Affinity
  1. Press ctrl+alt+del and select the 'processes' tab.
  2. Right-click on 'everquest.exe'
  3. In the menu presented, select 'Set Affinity'
  4. There should be a checkbox for each CPU. Choose the CPU you would like to handle the process and deselect the rest of them.

Linux
Note: this has been tested on Ubuntu 8.07, but should work on other versions of Linux in a similar manner.

Selecting Processor Affinity
  1. You will need root permissions to do this.
  2. Go to 'System -> Administration -> System Monitor'
  3. Click the 'Processes' tab.
  4. Find everquest.exe and note the value in the column 'ID'
  5. Go to 'Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal'
  6. Type the following line:
    Code:
    schedtool -a [#] [id]
    Where [#] is the CPU number (starting at 0), and [id] is the ID you wrote down in step 4.

General

Using Affinity While Two-Boxing
Set the process affinity of each application to a different CPU. This will take a certain amount of strain off of the processor because it no longer has to decide how to distribute load between cores with multiple memory-intensive applications, as well as keep the two applications from stepping on each other.​

Morphing/Stretching Models
Are you using an AMD processor? If so, this is likely a common issue caused by not having the AMD Dual Core Optimizer. You can download it here, which should solve your problem.​

Follow-Up

If anyone has anything at all to add to this, or questions, feel free to share. The more knowledge, the better.
 
When i try to set the affinity, it says i do not have permission (even though im admin). i then tried to set the compatibility to every available option, but it either doesnt run or doesnt fix it. i also tried disabling advanced text, but that doesnt do anything. any idea what else i could try? mine is an intel processor.
 
You need to use imagecfg to patch eqgame.exe's affinity in windows, either search for it in your hard drive or google it for a download. Open the command prompt and use imagecfg from there.

To set a process's affinity use imagecfg -a 0xn [File Path] [File Name]

Replace n with the CPU you want the process to use.

1 = CPU0
2 = CPU1
4 = CPU2
8 = CPU3

Since imagecfg.exe doesn't like paths with spaces in it, place imagecfg.exe into your EQ installation folder, and use:

imagecfg -a 0xn eqgame.exe

replace n with the CPU you want to patch the affinity to
 
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You need to use imagecfg to patch eqgame.exe's affinity in windows, either search for it in your hard drive or google it for a download. Open the command prompt as use imagecfg from there.

To set a process's affinity use "imagecfg -a 0xn [File Path] [File Name]

Replace n with the CPU you want the process to use.

1 = CPU0
2 = CPU1
4 = CPU2
8 = CPU3

Since imagecfg.exe doesn't like paths with spaces in it, place imagecfg.exe into your EQ installation folder, and use:

imagecfg -a 0xn eqgame.exe

replace n with the CPU you want to patch the affinity to

Are you sure its because of spaces? I know some command prompts (depending on O/S) only deal with truncated paths. For example, it maybe limited to 6 characters, and the end gets truncated with "~1" or something of the like.

So it would be C:\Progra~1\Games\Thisga~1\Eqgame.exe
instead of
C:\Program Files\Games\Thisgamerocks\Eqgame.exe.

I believe you also sometimes have to go folder by folder rather than listing the exact path.

I will agree though, there are some finicky things going on in those darn command prompts :p.
 
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Updated information about multiple processors.

Some things I found out with my new quad core processor is that Shards does not like using anything except processor 0 or 1 (aka Processor 1 and 2 from our SoD Patcher) So avoid using any processor option from the patcher beyond 2.

If you attempt to use processors 3 or 4 you can notice performance issues, graphic slowness, stuttering, etc.
 
Some things I found out with my new quad core processor is that Shards does not like using anything except processor 0 or 1 (aka Processor 1 and 2 from our SoD Patcher) So avoid using any processor option from the patcher beyond 2.

If you attempt to use processors 3 or 4 you can notice performance issues, graphic slowness, stuttering, etc.

Can anyone with more than 2 processors confirm they can use processors other than 1 and 2 successfully? If not, I'll remove the other options from the patcher.
 
I've tried kicking it off with each of the four processors, and I'm noticing some inconsistencies. It seems like it's getting throttled across a few and then eventually picks a processor to use, but the processor being used doesn't necessarily correspond to what was chosen in the launcher.

Long story short, I can't confirm or reject the theory.

Hope someone else has better luck than me!
 
I've noticed with a 4 core system (64bit vista) that if I don't choose a processor at all from the patcher is runs smoother than if I specify.

Alternatively, if I try to use a combination of processors when boxing (I.E. 1&3. 1&4, 2&3/4) often times there will be severe problems with locking up of JUST the SoD windows (i can tab out to firefox and iTunes and whatnot and have it running perfectly, but the graphics on SoD will lock up for sometimes upwards of 30 seconds) and it happens much more rarely if I run both instances from the SAME processor, or just 1&2 simultaneously.
 
I have a i7 and vista 64

didn't select a processor at all and unchecked "fix eqclient.ini

works awesome, and I two box with no problems.
 
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