P4 Comp. Owners: The affects of Hyper-Threading on FFXI

[AKosygin]

I just got my motherboard upgraded and a new CPU to finally go with my powerhouse (relatively) video card.... I run the benchmark and it is disappointing....... But I realized how Hyper-Threading may affect the performance. This is from my current observation, if you know more about Hyper-Threading, please feel free to correct me where I am wrong.

Some background on Hyper-Threading
With the new Pentium 4 processor, Hyper-Threading is supposed to speed up your applications by handling multi-tasking better. This is done, apparently, by dividing your CPU in to two parts to make one CPU look like two. That way, one application can use one CPU thread while another can use another without having to fight the other application. (A thread is the connection the system makes to the CPU, to simplify it.)

Noticable affects of the Hyper-Threading technology
Hyper-Threading divides up the CPU resources so that each thread is guaranteed AT LEAST 50% of CPU resources. If the other thread doesn't use their full CPU resources, the remainder is allocated to the thread if it needs that much CPU power. But it appears to have an overhead cost.

Stats of my computer
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz with Hyper-Thread Technology (can be toggled) 800 MHz FSB
512 MB DDR RAM 400MHz, currently running in single-paging mode. (Meaning the regular operation, rather than two parallel memory chips forming 800MHz on the ram.)
Nvidia Ti 4200 128 MB video RAM 8X AGP
Windows 2000 - Multiprocessor Kernel Mode on
(Note: Windows 2000 Professional and WinXP can have up to 2 CPUs, so if you "reinstall" the OS with Hyper-Thread on, you will install the multiprocessor Kernel and will get two CPU displays in your task manager.)
Intel Desktop Board D865PERL (yeah, it was cheap for the amount of features and support.)

Benchmark and Operation results
When I ran the benchmark and the game, both did better with the Hyper-Thread technology OFF. This means the OS only sees it as 1 CPU and not 2 CPUs.

In both cases, the system environment and hardware was all the same, the only difference is that Hyper-Threading was turned off in one of them.

With the Hyper-Threading turned off, I get a Benchmark score of 4825.

While with Hyper-Threading turned on, I get a Benchmark score of 4193.

Game play reflects the benchmark somewhat, but it is not too noticable.... until large battles. Then the lag hits you harder with the Hyper-Threading turned on.

Conclusion?
TURN OFF HPYER-THREADING IN YOUR BIOS! Most newer Intel Pentium 4 CPU supports Hyper-Threading. Yeah, it speeds up regular application use, but it prevents your games from using the full power of your CPU as it apparently "reserves" some CPU for your other junk. So if you have a newer P4 computer, check if Hyper-Threading is on or off. You usually can tell by going to the Task Manager and under performance and under CPU, you see one bar graph and TWO CPU line graphs. That is an indication that Hyper-Threading is on.

And 600 points difference is A LOT of difference. While Hyper-Threading is cool.... but I am keeping it off.

[Nex]

How do you get to BIOS so that you can turn your hyper threadning off?

[ppmanu2]

win 2000 performance decreases when ht is on it has been demonstrated in various reviews use win xp if you can

[Nex]

How do I turn my hyper threadning off??

[TeK-DeLorean™]

would this be hyper threading?

http://www.iownjoo.com/regimghost/apathy_nex/snap0063.gif

[bardia00]

dude you have the best Overclocking CPU, you could overclock it to 2.8-3Ghz no problem man, i would reccomend doing it, your performance should increase a lot ;)

[Doppelganger]

overclocking is only for those how know how to do it, if you screw up you can degrade stability a lot and overheat the processor.
how did you get a 2.4 gh p4 with ht? as far as i know, the lowest speed is 2.8 with ht and even that is rare

[Nex]

Can someone answer my question for once? How do you turn HT off?

[fastcart]

Intel released new CPUs this month. 2.4c, 2.6c and 2.8c with HT. As well as new Celerons up to 2.4 I believe.

Nex, you need to find the option from within your bios.

[Mithrankittycat]

I noticed that direct3d benchmarks on tomshardware.com were worse with HT enabled. Looks like future games would need to be designed for HT. X3

[Nex]

You're getting to BIOS when you restart your computer and then pressing F1, right?

It doesn't say nothing about Hyper Threadning:On or Off (for an exemple) there. Is there any other way that I can turn HT off?

[fastcart]

Most computers use either F2 or the Del key to get into the bios. There's no software way to disable it. Are yo sure your mother board supports HT?

[Nex]

I got the information about my computer before I bought it. It said Pentium 4 with Hyper Threadning 3,06Ghz. On this computer oits F1 to BIOS but there is no HT on or off :(

[fastcart]

Please!! Read your computer manual!! I beg you!!

[Macht]

If I recall right Pentiums are the only brand CPUs using Hyper-Threading and trying to develop a game to use all of the processors CPU would be next to impossible. Because the Hyper-Threading splits your CPU in half then in each individual CPU half gets the work load of the Threads being used in your OS. For the Windows OS alone you have about 200 threads since this load sharing is being split in the CPU that has to mean that the CPU has to determine which threads which half of it is going to process so that's extra load on the CPU I don't think is really necissary.

Anyway the problem is if you were to have a game use the CPUs full capacity while Hype-Threading is on, then you'd have to stop as many functions that are running as possible. Even then the game won't use the full capacity unless its programming tries to process more then half the CPU, then the CPU has to go threw extra workload shifting the CPUs designated processing to compensate for that program.

Really all I'm trying to state is the HT Technology it's design would work great if for example you're monitoring network connections and also doing data queries. Then you'd notice a good difference in speed, stuff that is work related that take up huge processing loads then that design works fine. For games though it isn't to good.

Honestly though I have a good dislike of Pentium 4 as I do Microsoft, both never really proved themselves as being companies intresting in truely developing technology. They are more intresting in developing it as fast as they can so they can make more money. Which is why I prefer AMD processors, still find it funny that an AMD 2.3GHz processor performed just as good if not bettern then Pentium's 3GHz processors, slap on top of that a Linux system compared to Windows and you're really talking about power then :thumbsup:

Anyway, if your computer has HT Technology it might be best to disable it if you arn't doing multiple processes that use a huge workload on your system. Those who do have it on, don't think that having it means you can download and play an online game without their being lag. That's something totally different, got to look more into the cell technology seems like it may of developed from what was done on the linux system of pooling CPUs. Awsome technology if you ever seen it in action.

[fastcart]

I'm not an AMD lover, but I won't turn this into a flame war. Just keep in mind that HT is more for future software/applications/game than what's around currently. I'm confident HT will prove itself. I mean it is kinda like DX9. Not many games can take advantage of it now, but in the future, many games will.

[gurico]

There are a few things you need to consider

First of all
1) Don't trust benchmark software all the time =)
2) HTT...the game you execute, must have HTT API in the code for it to really take advantage. HTT code in MOBO and OS just won't cut it.
3) HTT is a marketing deployment.
4) FF XI is not HTT compliant.

All that said your test is inconsistent in the environment in which you executed it in.

Try these scenarios
1) Run FF XI w/ HTT off (get benchmark numbers)
2) Run HTT complaint software w/ HTT OFF (get benchmark numbers)
3) Run HTT compliant software w/ HTT ON (get benchmark numbers)

after getting the numbers from these scenarios, you should have a more consistent "pattern"of how HTT performance is. Sorry but the test you just ran just proves that FF XI just doesn't like HTT API more than anything, hehehe.

[Macht]

Ok, some of what I said probably wasn't appropriate. Mainly here is what I know as a difference between Hyper-Threading architecture and QuantiSpeed architecture.

Both do split the threading so they are doing a "Symultaneous Multi Tasking". The big difference is how the split continues in Hyper-Threading it starts and ends right were it does the processing so the CPU floating-point, FSB, etc have to compete for use. In the QuantiSpeed it almost the same but they took a sort-of extra step, they developed what they could of the resources so that they can handle a double load or triple load of information. The QuantiSpeed however doesn't make that single processor appear as two logical ones it uses it still as one, just what ever thread would generally run longer can have a portion of the processor to do it and the rest of the threads will use what ever other threads are open for it.

Similar ideas to the same thing just done differently. The way I looked at it Hyper-Threading seems like splitting a 4 lane highway that splits into 2 unique 4 lane highways, but down the line it becomes a single 4 lane highway again which just seems like it may cause a bottle-necking.

As for the QuantiSpeed it takes the 4 lane highway and the bigger traffic like a truck, gets split to a new 2 or 3 lane and the rest of the traffic goes to a new 4 lane highway and futher down the line they merge to a 5 lane highway.

That's more what I was trying to say but didn't do it right. Now using a program that supports Hyper-Threading I can see how it could take advantage of the design, but usually when a split like that is needed is if the computer is trying to do multiple queries with a database. A game does that to a point but it's bigger part is all math, at most when a game does database queries is when it's loading the game or looking for text to display as an event to something the player did in the environment.

As far as movement and how your position relates to other objects on the screen, the stuff most gamers seem to pay most attention to thats math not querrying a database everytime to come up with that. To add to that, as long as the database is developed right it hardly takes any processing for it to do what it's designed to do.

So in conclusion to me it just seems like the Hyper-Threading needs a little more work. A game designed to use it I can see event triggered actions in the game respond faster, but not really by much unless the database for it was poorly designed.

[Doppelganger]

Originally posted by Macht

Similar ideas to the same thing just done differently. The way I looked at it Hyper-Threading seems like splitting a 4 lane highway that splits into 2 unique 4 lane highways, but down the line it becomes a single 4 lane highway again which just seems like it may cause a bottle-necking.

As for the QuantiSpeed it takes the 4 lane highway and the bigger traffic like a truck, gets split to a new 2 or 3 lane and the rest of the traffic goes to a new 4 lane highway and futher down the line they merge to a 5 lane highway.

shouldn't it be a 4 lane highway turned into two 2 lane highways (avenues?). then the quanti speed shouldn't it be it splits into two 2 lane highways or a 3 lane highway and a single lane highway (one way street?) ?
if not your math doesn't quite add up anyway you try.
:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Bishop]

Intel has reported that "some" of their 3.02ghz p4 cpus with hyperthreading is not performing as well as they should. They had temporarly stopped production of those and I'm not sure what the status of those are right now.