Post by natvac on Apr 6, 2010 14:54:47 GMT -5
A-burnzz, I don't consider anyone to be a god of STALKER modding (although bardak came close). We all have feet of clay. (There is a saying, though: Those who think they know everything are especially annoying to those of us who do. ;D)
Good. I didn't waste my time writing this post on the subject of "-noprefetch" for STALKER SoC.
But I still need to extend it a bit for CoP, something I'm not qualified to do; I don't have CoP. It is my understanding that the current CoP code no longer checks the command line for the option, but the devs had tweaked the prefetching a bit. And I understand that there are mods available to tweak some of the script-based prefetching still further.
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Okay, Basil, I did use some computer terminology. Here are some simplified explanations:
Race condition: The situation where it is possible for event B to take place before its expected prerequisite, event A, which normally does occur before B. Example: The bus comes every hour. You need to be there before it arrives. Something makes you only one minute late, but you still have to wait almost another hour for the next bus.
The game wants to spawn enemies or crate items for you. Before, this was done sequentially by the same processor core, but the newer code tries to offload the job to the second core, so it creates another thread (a separate sequence of instructions; think of it as a separate job) and delegates it/offloads it/hands it off to the second processor.
It does this by putting the request to process the spawn thread (do the job of spawning stuff) in a stack or queue for the second processor to look at when it gets time. Sometimes this request is very low on the stack or way at the back of a very long queue when it is checked by the second processor.
I oversimplified my earlier example despite the techy terms. There are complications from things like priority of tasks. Maybe if you think of the ride to the spawn place as a taxi instead of a bus, and there are some higher-priority bullies who will push you out of the way to get into the taxi you were going to enter -- and the guys behind you awaiting taxi rides tell you to go to the back of the line...
And all this presupposes the buses run on time.
The completely-empty level suggests that the spawn process is clogged or stalled. Once you get the first spawn, the others should follow quickly. You might check to see what background processes might be taking priority on your computer, or if you enabled a tweak to control the task distribution to that second processor and it's causing an issue. Or perhaps your second processor core is running at 100% doing something at a higher priority, effectively locking out any spawns.
Disclaimer, again: Just my observations and advice. I don't have any dual-core/multi-core processors. In my defense, that's like saying a doctor doesn't have the genetic predisposition for a problem his patient has -- is he still qualified to give advice warning him away from self-treatment? But hey, if a treatment for baldness can help people with ED, that doc is not going to stop you from going to a foreign country for help.
I would take A-burnzz's observation about malware very seriously though, even if there's collusion between AV makers and software publishers to exploit that fear.
Good. I didn't waste my time writing this post on the subject of "-noprefetch" for STALKER SoC.
But I still need to extend it a bit for CoP, something I'm not qualified to do; I don't have CoP. It is my understanding that the current CoP code no longer checks the command line for the option, but the devs had tweaked the prefetching a bit. And I understand that there are mods available to tweak some of the script-based prefetching still further.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Okay, Basil, I did use some computer terminology. Here are some simplified explanations:
Race condition: The situation where it is possible for event B to take place before its expected prerequisite, event A, which normally does occur before B. Example: The bus comes every hour. You need to be there before it arrives. Something makes you only one minute late, but you still have to wait almost another hour for the next bus.
The game wants to spawn enemies or crate items for you. Before, this was done sequentially by the same processor core, but the newer code tries to offload the job to the second core, so it creates another thread (a separate sequence of instructions; think of it as a separate job) and delegates it/offloads it/hands it off to the second processor.
It does this by putting the request to process the spawn thread (do the job of spawning stuff) in a stack or queue for the second processor to look at when it gets time. Sometimes this request is very low on the stack or way at the back of a very long queue when it is checked by the second processor.
I oversimplified my earlier example despite the techy terms. There are complications from things like priority of tasks. Maybe if you think of the ride to the spawn place as a taxi instead of a bus, and there are some higher-priority bullies who will push you out of the way to get into the taxi you were going to enter -- and the guys behind you awaiting taxi rides tell you to go to the back of the line...
And all this presupposes the buses run on time.
The completely-empty level suggests that the spawn process is clogged or stalled. Once you get the first spawn, the others should follow quickly. You might check to see what background processes might be taking priority on your computer, or if you enabled a tweak to control the task distribution to that second processor and it's causing an issue. Or perhaps your second processor core is running at 100% doing something at a higher priority, effectively locking out any spawns.
Disclaimer, again: Just my observations and advice. I don't have any dual-core/multi-core processors. In my defense, that's like saying a doctor doesn't have the genetic predisposition for a problem his patient has -- is he still qualified to give advice warning him away from self-treatment? But hey, if a treatment for baldness can help people with ED, that doc is not going to stop you from going to a foreign country for help.
I would take A-burnzz's observation about malware very seriously though, even if there's collusion between AV makers and software publishers to exploit that fear.
