Why does everyone say that most games don’t use more than one core?

[dragonjesse95]

After hearing this, I started up a couple of my favourite games. On both of them, all four cores were maxing out meaning that all of them were being used. I checked resource monitor and they were using about 40 threads each. Is this just the games that I play or do most games actually use more than one core now? Everyone still says that games only use one core.

 

[Frag Maniac]

The only ones still saying that are either still playing older games, or making the claim based on all video games ever made, and taking an average. You could as well say most games play at 1080p on no more than a GTX 1060, which is true, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[k1114]

Single core game engines haven't been the norm for more than a decade. The majority of the dx graphics workload was on a single core up to dx 10 because it was inefficient and programmed that way but they at least spread physics, network, and other work to other cores. That's still many years since dx11 has been around. Wherever you are reading single core must be ancient or severely uninformed.

 

[mjbn1977]

This is a misconception, that games don't use more then one core, but it is true that many games are not optimized for handling multiple cores (especially more than 4 threads) and spreading to workload on several cores evenly. Since 70% of all gamers are still using 4 core cpus and only recently the core count in gamer workstations is picking up, it only just started recently that more and more game developers trying to optimize the game for the use with +4 (6 and 8 core) CPUs, in order to spread the threads evenly and make sure the resources are use optimal (examples are BF1 and BF5, also AC: O). Another problem is that DX11 is not doing good in multi core scaling, but DX12 is much better in that aspect (easier for the developer to accomplish). So, as more and more games will use DX12 we will see also much better and more optimized multicore usage.

 

[little_me]

I also have to point out that amount of cores/threads games support have been for loooong time, tied to core/thread count of consoles for big game companies (that make games for consoles and PC's)

Reasons are pretty much cost cutting in porting to PC's.
only most recent consoles have 6 cores for games (yes, xbox one x has 8 but 2 have been dedicated for non-game stuff) and so.. yeah.

 

[k1114]

Ps3 and xbox 360 are not single thread cpus and those date back farther than a decade. Dual cores were the norm during that time and those consoles are higher thread count. Quad cores have only been the majority for 4 years if you go by steam's survey. The ps4 and xbone were out 5 years ago. Consoles have always had more threads than the average pc gamer.

 

[mjbn1977]

Ps3 and xbox 360 are not single thread cpus and those date back farther than a decade. Dual cores were the norm during that time and those consoles are higher thread count. Quad cores have only been the majority for 4 years if you go by steam's survey. The ps4 and xbone were out 5 years ago. Consoles have always had more threads than the average pc gamer.

Correct, but console game are being optimized differently than PC games. They will optimize a console title perfectly to that specific hardware because this software will always run on the same hardware (same gpu and same cpu with same thread count all the time). That's why consoles get away with relatively crappy hardware compared to gaming PCs. PC games can't be optimized in the same way, since the game has to run on so many different hardware configurations, that console level optimization is not possible. But the majority of CPUs of the last few years were 2 and 4 core CPUs and that is why most games of the last few years were optimized for those configurations. I remember long time ago (about 10 yrs?) when deactivating HT and cores actually improved the frame rate in CRYSIS.

But its changing now.....new games are much better optimized for many cores.....but more than 16 threads can still lead to problems with many games.

 

[TerryLaze]

The only ones still saying that are either still playing older games, or making the claim based on all video games ever made, and taking an average. You could as well say most games play at 1080p on no more than a GTX 1060, which is true, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

While there are pretty much no more games that only run one single thread,the amount of games where the main thread is far more important than any of the others is still very high.
If you have one thread using twice the processing power then any of the other threads then the game's speed pretty much is still bound to the single thread speed.

 

[Frag Maniac]

It should also be mentioned that it entirely depends what games we're talking here. The majority of today's AAA cross platform titles will use 4 or more threads, but the PC platform also has tons of obscure titles by small indie developers that have much less robust graphics and engines. Al lot of those games can run on mostly one thread.