What on Earth is the deal with the CPU usage?

[JonnyEntropy]

I'm no IT expert (or indeed an expert at anything, ask my wife) but should Planet Coaster be using 90% of my CPU? Seems a lot.

i7-6700k, 980ti, 32gb RAM.

Total War Warhammer uses like 50% CPU with everything on Ultra, 4 full armies and with double the FPS I get with on this game on medium. Never thought I'd see the day I'd be praising a Total War game for its optimisation. Cities Skylines barely uses 20% with a full City.

My computer room is only small, it's getting hot in here. I forget my point.

[Jacknm2]

Pretty much yes, There is a lot more being simulated in PC than most other games, not to mention the indiviual Guest AI.

This is part of the reaosn why so many people with decent but not high end machines are struggling to play the game. Its fine when you first start off, get above 3k guests and a 2 quarters filled park of rides and lots of scenery and its going to start eating it up.

My CPU usage in a 3/4 Park with 6.8K guests is around 70 - 80% usage. - i7 4790K @4.5Ghz

[Will]

That's why you get a 6,8 or 10 core CPU instead of the peasan quad-core.

[Jacknm2]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Will:

That's why you get a 6,8 or 10 core CPU instead of the peasan quad-core.

well, lets see how many cores the 6 or 10 core CPU's are using with this game, i bet it isnt more than 4.....

[Mr. Unethical.]

Most games use 2-4 cores. What's most important is thread efficiency and the intel CPUs have that in huge amounts.

More cores might solve background apps causing bottlenecks but PlanetCoaster reaching 90% of four cores and not 100% proves that more cores wont mean a whole lot.

Actually, an overclock is going to do more for you here. My 3770k overclock doesn't see much more than 70%. My girlfriend, (the one who has the game in her library) has a lower clocked CPU than me and there is a discernible difference.

This game is very much CPU intense.

[Jacknm2]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cao Cao:

Most games use 2-4 cores. What's most important is thread efficiency and the intel CPUs have that in huge amounts.

More cores might solve background apps causing bottlenecks but PlanetCoaster reaching 90% of four cores and not 100% proves that more cores wont mean a whole lot.

Actually, an overclock is going to do more for you here. My 3770k overclock doesn't see much more than 70%. My girlfriend, (the one who has the game in her library) has a lower clocked CPU than me and there is a discernible difference.

This game is very much CPU intense.

Thats why i gave an equally satirical statement to will....lol I know this:)

[Will]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Jacknm2:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Will:

That's why you get a 6,8 or 10 core CPU instead of the peasan quad-core.

well, lets see how many cores the 6 or 10 core CPU's are using with this game, i bet it isnt more than 4.....

which means you won't get 100% CPU usage any more, exactly what the OP wanted.

[Jacknm2]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Will:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Jacknm2:

well, lets see how many cores the 6 or 10 core CPU's are using with this game, i bet it isnt more than 4.....

which means you won't get 100% CPU usage any more, exactly what the OP wanted.

And less performance, its not just a case of having more cores to keep the usage down. I've seen and tested this with the intel entusiast cores, 5820k, 5930k. They usually give no benefit or worse off performance (were talking small figures here).

In the OP's case hes better off having less cores at a faster speed for more effeciency. Having the CPU at 90% load isnt a bad thing, yes its going to be drawing more power and producing heat but its there to be used. Overclocking it will likely improve his performance but the power draw and heat production will probably increase in turn.

The only reason I'd ever have a 6 - 8 core CPU is if i was doing video rendering and streaming.

[Holyvision]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Jacknm2:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Will:

which means you won't get 100% CPU usage any more, exactly what the OP wanted.

And less performance, its not just a case of having more cores to keep the usage down. I've seen and tested this with the intel entusiast cores, 5820k, 5930k. They usually give no benefit or worse off performance (were talking small figures here).

In the OP's case hes better off having less cores at a faster speed for more effeciency. Having the CPU at 90% load isnt a bad thing, yes its going to be drawing more power and producing heat but its there to be used. Overclocking it will likely improve his performance but the power draw and heat production will probably increase in turn.

The only reason I'd ever have a 6 - 8 core CPU is if i was doing video rendering and streaming.

I run a 6900k@4.6 on liquid, and this is pretty accurate. Most games today are not programmed to use more than 4 cores on the CPU at any given time. Of course there are rare exeptions though. I've yet to hit a point that causes me to drop below 35fps in the absolute most demanding parks tested; most of the time 60-100fps is non-issue.

Again though, it is correct in saying more cores is not a solution (for this game) as more cores would be unused by the game, even if they existed. It may help offload some of the system background tasks and junk slightly, but really this game it comes down to the raw ability to crunch data in the CPU. Typically out of the box (before overclocks) more core CPUs will operate at a slower speed, so unless you can really USE those extra cores, it would be better to get fewer cores that could run more efficiently. Again all this not assuming custom clocks and etc.

Long story short though yea, it's a CPU heavy game. The more objects, guests, whatever that is in the world the more data it's gotta crunch all the time. Many systems will likely need to get used to lower setting(s) or at least turn them down once the performance starts to really degrade with growth. Sadly "recommended system specs" are not the same thing as "you can run the game with max settings specs".

[Tavuk Bey]

8 core with 16gb RAM here. whenever the population gets over 5k, i usually close the park and kick the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guests out to solve this issue. game needs more optimization.

[Holyvision]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tavuk Bey:

8 core with 16gb RAM here. whenever the population gets over 5k, i usually close the park and kick the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guests out to solve this issue. game needs more optimization.

Remember in your park window you can also set a "max guests" limit to the park, so you don't go over so many thousand(s) your system can handle and stay open. Just if people hadn't seen that yet.

[Jacknm2]

The above I wont argue with, it just aggrovates me when people suggest things without thinking, What would happen if the OP wentt and bought one of these enthusiast CPU's and come back and said my CPU load is now 50 - 70% but my performance is worse, id partly say why did you do that aftter one post to the op but still :P lol.

I run my i7 4790k @ 4.5Ghz (tiny overclock) on air because these chips didnt really perform as expected when overclocked, each chip is different but in most cases people were limited to 4.8Ghz stable on Liquid. A large park with a 6k+ amount of guests puts my system up to 70 - 80% load and reaches temps of 86 Deg C which people may think is high but stress testing with prime 95 for 6 hours yielded similar temps and thats stressing the CPU for 6 hours straight, so long as I'm not going above 95 Deg C I'm happy, a little warm but happy with the system lol.

[Holyvision]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Jacknm2:

The above I wont argue with, it just aggrovates me when people suggest things without thinking, What would happen if the OP wentt and bought one of these enthusiast CPU's and come back and said my CPU load is now 50 - 70% but my performance is worse, id partly say why did you do that aftter one post to the op but still :P lol.

I run my i7 4790k @ 4.5Ghz (tiny overclock) on air because these chips didnt really perform as expected when overclocked, each chip is different but in most cases people were limited to 4.8Ghz stable on Liquid. A large park with a 6k+ amount of guests puts my system up to 70 - 80% load and reaches temps of 86 Deg C which people may think is high but stress testing with prime 95 for 6 hours yielded similar temps and thats stressing the CPU for 6 hours straight, so long as I'm not going above 95 Deg C I'm happy, a little warm but happy with the system lol.

Christmas is upon us, time to move to water.

[Lambs2Lions]

i7-6850k (6 core / 12 threads) @ 4.4GHz, 64Gb RAM and a GTX 1080. This game is poorly optimized it would seem. I understand that each sim has an individual AI but there isn't that much decision making for them. At least 10k+ visitors should have been easy imo.

With 6 cores i am hitting 65% usage at 6500+ guests. Doesn't seem to be any different than the i7 4790k @ 4.5GHz above which is rather dissapointing. More cores/threads didn't improve performance at all.

Not talking out of my ass, application and game developer :)

Początkowo opublikowane przez Holyvision:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tavuk Bey:

8 core with 16gb RAM here. whenever the population gets over 5k, i usually close the park and kick the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guests out to solve this issue. game needs more optimization.

Remember in your park window you can also set a "max guests" limit to the park, so you don't go over so many thousand(s) your system can handle and stay open. Just if people hadn't seen that yet. :D:

That's a bad solution, you limit your parks growth because you need to hire more staff and incurr more expenses. As the park grows in size, it has to accept more visitors.

[Jacknm2]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Holyvision:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Jacknm2:

The above I wont argue with, it just aggrovates me when people suggest things without thinking, What would happen if the OP wentt and bought one of these enthusiast CPU's and come back and said my CPU load is now 50 - 70% but my performance is worse, id partly say why did you do that aftter one post to the op but still :P lol.

I run my i7 4790k @ 4.5Ghz (tiny overclock) on air because these chips didnt really perform as expected when overclocked, each chip is different but in most cases people were limited to 4.8Ghz stable on Liquid. A large park with a 6k+ amount of guests puts my system up to 70 - 80% load and reaches temps of 86 Deg C which people may think is high but stress testing with prime 95 for 6 hours yielded similar temps and thats stressing the CPU for 6 hours straight, so long as I'm not going above 95 Deg C I'm happy, a little warm but happy with the system lol.

Christmas is upon us, time to move to water.

I have a child and 2 nieces and 2 nephews......Christmas as i knew it is over for me lol

[Jacknm2]

Początkowo opublikowane przez G4mBi7:

i7-6850k (6 core / 12 threads) @ 4.4GHz, 64Gb RAM and a GTX 1080. This game is poorly optimized it would seem. I understand that each sim has an individual AI but there isn't that much decision making for them. At least 10k+ visitors should have been easy imo.

With 6 cores i am hitting 65% usage at 6500+ guests. Doesn't seem to be any different than the i7 4790k @ 4.5GHz above which is rather dissapointing. More cores/threads didn't improve performance at all.

Not talking out of my ass, application and game developer :)

Początkowo opublikowane przez Holyvision:

Remember in your park window you can also set a "max guests" limit to the park, so you don't go over so many thousand(s) your system can handle and stay open. Just if people hadn't seen that yet. :D:

That's a bad solution, you limit your parks growth because you need to hire more staff and incurr more expenses. As the park grows in size, it has to accept more visitors.

I understand and share your disapointment but and I stress this... I do have some faith in Frontier and their development process and patching seeing the progress of elite dangerous, I would hope they will try to improve it some what considering what they are catering to at the moment is niche market of Computer enthusiast's whilst the bread and butter moderatte Computers and beginner enthusiats (or budget, however you want tto spin) are left wondering why they cannot create a larger park.

I'm no game developer, my software knowledge is rather lacking other than the basic and some advanced trouble shooting and problem solving, I'm a self taught enthusiast and dont pretend to be anything else. Butt I am an aerospace engineer, so I consider myself techincally minded and can usually route out the problems :P

I'd like to see them make the effort to use more cores and hyperthreading, but considering the majority of gamers are on Quad cores They might not have the incentive.