takealready

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I came across the program set Affinity II v1.037
http://www.geocities.com/edgemeal_software/SetAffinity/index.htm

when I was in another forum chatting about how NFS Most Wanted didn't want to install on my Vista Ultimate 64, anyway....

This program forces games or programs to use all of your cores. I knew about going to Task Manager-->right clicking on a program that's running-->clocking on set affinity--> and seeing if all the boxes had check marks on them. The only problem with that is you have to do it manually everytime you have that program running.

But this set Affinity II v1.037 will do it automatically for you everytime. I tested it out on my Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (which only uses one core), once I added it to my favorite programs and set it to use both cores automatically,l the game runs even faster than before. Now I can trap 15 cars on the highway and blow them all up with the rocket launcher without getting micro stutter. :lol:

Now we have no excuse not to go 3 or more cores :bounce: . Since this program will use as many cores as you want for any program (time to start flaunting your muscles).

I just wanted to share this program with everyone and let me know how it works with AMD Fusion

Your welcome ;)
 

spongebob

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You can have some influence on which core a single threaded application runs on, but you can not transform a single threaded application into a multi-threaded application simply by setting affinity.
 

turboflame

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By default windows sets the affinity to use all available cores, that program is mainly for setting the affinity to less cores to help older programs that don't work on multi-core systems.

You might get a performance increase by setting the game to use an idle core while running all background processes on another but you can't force a program to use multiple cores unless it was specifically designed to do so.
 

takealready

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Yeah I'm about to change the title of this post to reversed hyperthreading like "Dekasav" said.

It kind of sucks that it reverses hyper-threading.



 

takealready

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Then I must ask this question, if by default windows uses all the cores. Why is everyone talking about there's no justification in 3, 4, 6 and 8 core systems? I know you've heard the term "most games can't use more than 2 cores...".

So if I build a system with a ASUS L1N64-SLI WS + two Opteron 2350 = 8 cores on two sockets, then every game I play should in theory use all 8 cores.
 

turboflame

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Affinity simply allows the game access to all cores, that doesn't mean the game is forced to use them. Most games are coded for two cores and a handful are coded for 4 cores. A game with 2 threads will use 2 cores even if you had 128 cores available.



Nope, not unless someone specifically designs a game so that it can take advantage of 8 cores.
 

Dekasav

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It may use cycles on all 8 cores, but it will only use two cores at any given time, which means it gets no speed increase from having more than 2 cores.
 

takealready

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Now I'm starting to feel like I'm being robbed... :fou:

What's the point of building an uber system if only converting and rendering programs (like 7zip and most of the new video converters) will benefit from them, but not games?

It's a good thing I posted this :D I was just about to build a $1,000+ system with a quad-core as the crown jewel. Though sadly :cry: I can't choke my x2 3800+ anymore and I don't want to mess around with another dual-core.

Well at least I'll have my fantasy's of an 8core system to make me feel even worse.

Thanks everyone :pfff:

:cry: where's a tissue when you need one :cry:
 

Dougx1317

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As everyone keeps saying, you can't force a program to use more cores than it was designed to use. But does this Affinity II v1.037 help in anyway?

Would it be beneficial for me to get this program?
 

spongebob

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In most cases Windows will do a better job at managing core load than your average user will. I'd probably just leave it to the OS.
 

takealready

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On another forum I was told that you can use this program to force a program NOT TO USE ALL THE CORES. For some programs that don't work well with multi-core systems . This program will have them use one core.