Does having a 6 core CPU help much for software mode?

[Dr_Hycodan]

I'm currently on a 4770K, would going to a haswell-E 6 core CPU help much for software mode?

[dogen]

What games are you playing that need more than a 4770k? Have you tried adjusting the number of extra threads?

[Blyss Sarania]

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: A 4770k is enough anyway. A 6 core Haswell E will not make anything playable that your current CPU wouldn't play.

[Dr_Hycodan]

MGS3 cutscenes and zone of the enders 2

[dogen]

MGS3 cutscenes and zone of the enders 2

Two of the most demanding games... A 6 core might get you to full speed, but I really don't know. I know at some point the benefit of each thread becomes smaller because the main gs thread becomes a bottleneck. I'm not sure what point that is.

We can't guarantee anything, unless another member has tested those games on one of those processors.

[Rassane]

Gregory has a 5960x, maybe he tested it at some point

[Dr_Hycodan]

Is that fast enough to render mgs3 cutscenes in software?

[ssakash]

did you try out with your current 4770k ? what results do you get ?

[Dr_Hycodan]

drop to lower 30's in intense post processing scenes like when the hatch opens at sunrise and scenes outside the plane during sunrise with 6 sw threads and mtvu.

[gregory]

Gregory has a 5960x, maybe he tested it at some point

And it really worths it

I didn't test the game but I debugger several trace of it. 6 are unlikely to help (might be slower). The game does a special post-processing effect that is hard to emulate naively. Even HW renderer is slow (CRC disable it partially).

In short the game does

Code:

Foreach 64x32 block of the image
Convert the input texture (main thread)
Convert the render target (main thread)
Do the rendering (N extra thread)
End foreach

The slow part is the conversion. Not the rendering. Hum actually GSdx might actually dispatch the full block to a single rendering thread. Because thread works by block of lines for cache efficienty.

Maybe you can check it. I guess you have a thread at 100% and others are likely to be idle.

Conclusion 6 cores won't help.