Forums | MacLife

Mr. T · 2009-07-12 4:19 pm

I realize that I'm probably the only one here with both an i7 and Grid -- but I figure it can't hurt to ask...

Here's the low down: With version 1.2, my average framerate was about 0.75 FPS (earlier versions would hang at the loading screen). After a bunch of trial & error, I traced the problem down to multithreading. Basically, the only way to make this game run perfectly is to go into the BIOS, set the number of cores to 1, and disable HyperThreading. 2 cores and no HT almost works, but leads to periodic slowdown (particularly with the in-car view).

Some other things I've tried, to no avail:

• Changing the processor affinity:
.....Starting the game with "/affinity 01" (forces the game to run on core 0).
.....Starting the game with "/affinity 10" (forces the game to run on core 4).

Then I suspected that the game might be favoring the HT cores. Since I don't know which cores are the HT ones, I tried every logical combination to rule this out.
.....Starting the game with "/affinity 03" (forces the game to run on cores 0 and 1).
.....Starting the game with "/affinity 05" (forces the game to run on cores 0 and 2).
.....Starting the game with "/affinity 0a" (forces the game to run on cores 1 and 3).
.....Starting the game with "/affinity 11" (forces the game to run on cores 0 and 4).
.....Starting the game with "/affinity c0" (forces the game to run on cores 6 and 7).

• Renaming the 8 core worker file to the 2 core one.

• Editing the hardware_settings_restrictions.xml file so that the 8-core case resembles the 2 core case

• Editing the hardware_settings_restrictions.xml file, removing everything but the else case, and deleting the conditional tags.

• Disabling SLI.

• Punching Richard Darling in the face.

I'm fresh out of ideas. Disabling 3 cores and HyperThreading from the BIOS is an unacceptable solution.

Bat · 2009-07-12 8:59 pm

Valve's forums seem to have others having problems w/GRID. Worth a look?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/f … .php?f=414

akb825 · 2009-07-12 10:09 pm

Bat wrote:
Valve's forums seem to have others having problems w/GRID. Worth a look?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/f … .php?f=414

Wow, looking at that list of thread titles is... depressing.

Mr. T · 2009-07-12 11:10 pm

Thanks for the link. I saw a couple of other posts where both the game-time* & framerate would periodically slow down, and speed up again. This is how I would describe the game running under 2 cores w/o HT. With more than 2 cores, the game-time and framerate are constantly sluggish.

In any event, I didn't see any solutions. sad I think I'll just cross my fingers that a patch will roll out to fix this.

*(by game time slow-down, I mean: 1 second of game time spans 10 seconds of real time)

Mr. T · 2009-07-12 11:12 pm

akb825 wrote:
Bat wrote:
Valve's forums seem to have others having problems w/GRID. Worth a look?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/f … .php?f=414
Wow, looking at that list of thread titles is... depressing.

BugMasters™

Earendil the Mariner · 2009-07-12 11:59 pm

I think you should try punching that guy in the face again.

Or you could complain and wait for a patch... or get the console version... or play Dirt instead, it's more fun tongue

Last edited by Earendil the Mariner (2009-07-13 12:00 am)

akb825 · 2009-07-13 1:54 am

Out of curiosity I looked up to see if there was info on this problem, and it looks like this guy has the solution. (instead of 4 cores set the value to 8 cores) It looks like they specifically default it to 2 cores, so it doesn't work nicely with more cores. Which is completely stupid, as there are system calls to query how many cores you have... but often developers either don't see or bother to look for the obvious solution.

Mr. T · 2009-07-13 12:56 pm

akb825 wrote:
Out of curiosity I looked up to see if there was info on this problem, and it looks like this guy has the solution. (instead of 4 cores set the value to 8 cores) It looks like they specifically default it to 2 cores, so it doesn't work nicely with more cores. Which is completely stupid, as there are system calls to query how many cores you have... but often developers either don't see or bother to look for the obvious solution.

Thanks, that was the first thing I tried (sorry, I forgot to mention). I tried a bunch of other stuff involving those files (which I did mention).

Last edited by Mr. T (2009-07-13 12:56 pm)

Mr. T · 2009-07-13 1:15 pm

Earendil the Mariner wrote:
I think you should try punching that guy in the face again.

I'm thinking about it.

or get the console version...

The console version doesn't look as good.

Mr. T · 2009-07-13 1:16 pm

CodeSlackers™

Bat · 2009-07-13 2:42 pm

Codebusters™?

Mr. T · 2009-07-13 10:18 pm

ftw

~Coxy · 2009-07-14 1:45 am

akb825 wrote:
Out of curiosity I looked up to see if there was info on this problem, and it looks like this guy has the solution. (instead of 4 cores set the value to 8 cores) It looks like they specifically default it to 2 cores, so it doesn't work nicely with more cores. Which is completely stupid, as there are system calls to query how many cores you have... but often developers either don't see or bother to look for the obvious solution.

I don't think it's a quad core issue, because the game works fine on AMD X3/4s and Core 2 Quads. Must be something particular to Nehalem.

akb825 · 2009-07-14 2:27 am

~Coxy wrote:
akb825 wrote:
Out of curiosity I looked up to see if there was info on this problem, and it looks like this guy has the solution. (instead of 4 cores set the value to 8 cores) It looks like they specifically default it to 2 cores, so it doesn't work nicely with more cores. Which is completely stupid, as there are system calls to query how many cores you have... but often developers either don't see or bother to look for the obvious solution.
I don't think it's a quad core issue, because the game works fine on AMD X3/4s and Core 2 Quads. Must be something particular to Nehalem.

A couple of people in that thread said that trick got it working on their core i7s. But it also looks like they were experiencing crashing issues when updating to 1.2... so maybe the update made it worse. (that's what updates are for, right? hmm )

Mr. T · 2009-07-14 5:33 pm

akb825 wrote:
~Coxy wrote:
akb825 wrote:
Out of curiosity I looked up to see if there was info on this problem, and it looks like this guy has the solution. (instead of 4 cores set the value to 8 cores) It looks like they specifically default it to 2 cores, so it doesn't work nicely with more cores. Which is completely stupid, as there are system calls to query how many cores you have... but often developers either don't see or bother to look for the obvious solution.
I don't think it's a quad core issue, because the game works fine on AMD X3/4s and Core 2 Quads. Must be something particular to Nehalem.
A couple of people in that thread said that trick got it working on their core i7s. But it also looks like they were experiencing crashing issues when updating to 1.2... so maybe the update made it worse. (that's what updates are for, right? )

It's not all tracks. I've also noticed that most tracks work fairly decently if you lower the graphics settings. My best guess is that the i7 users who got it working don't really know how it's "supposed" to run. I'm a special case, because the system I upgraded from already ran this game smoothly when maxed out --so I knew something was wrong when I had to disable crowds, and such to get it working smoothly. But someone just buying this game for a new i7 rig, would probably assume that the system can't handle max settings. (I tried the trick you posted before and after updating, to no avail).

Forums | MacLife

#1 2009-07-12 4:19 pm

Grid HATES the i7

#2 2009-07-12 8:59 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

#3 2009-07-12 10:09 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

Bat wrote:

#4 2009-07-12 11:10 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

#5 2009-07-12 11:12 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

akb825 wrote:

Bat wrote:

#6 2009-07-12 11:59 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

#7 2009-07-13 1:54 am

Re: Grid HATES the i7

#8 2009-07-13 12:56 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

akb825 wrote:

#9 2009-07-13 1:15 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

Earendil the Mariner wrote:

#10 2009-07-13 1:16 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

#11 2009-07-13 2:42 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

#12 2009-07-13 10:18 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

#13 2009-07-14 1:45 am

Re: Grid HATES the i7

akb825 wrote:

#14 2009-07-14 2:27 am

Re: Grid HATES the i7

~Coxy wrote:

akb825 wrote:

#15 2009-07-14 5:33 pm

Re: Grid HATES the i7

akb825 wrote:

~Coxy wrote:

akb825 wrote:

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