Turn off Multithreading (intel) / SMT (amd), increase performance 100%

[remainedYoung]

I just did that in bios and turned off SMT (for amd users), it boosted my benchmark from 1025 to 1125 and there was 0 lag in the benchmark.

AoE2 DE will only use 1 THREAD and not 1 core. So by having multithreading or smt turned on you only use half a core. Will greatly boost your performance if you turn it off and if you got something like a 6 or 8 core cpu the downsite should be near to nothing with other applications.

[Ghost Robertson]

It's not practical turning off multi threading for just one game. :-)

[remainedYoung]

Basically you almost never need multithreading I would say if you are a gamer.

Multithreading and SMT is built to optimize the Workload on your cores. Lets say you got a tons of processes which need to be ran in parallel. Sure you can speed up maybe your browsing and whatever in windows, but for almost all applications multithreading will not give you any advantage with modern 6/8/12/16 core cpus

If you only got 2 or 4 cores, yes then it makes total sense but not on something like an 8 core cpu

Well lets not argue, turning it off will increase your performance drastically. That is all I wanted to say.

[Icewind]

Wow thanks a lot! This really worked for me!

I have a Ryzen 2600X and after turning off multithreading in the bios the in-game benchmark went from 30-35 fps average to 40-45 without the UHD textures, and from 15-25 to 25-35 with them. And while loading the last map in the William Wallace Campaign I went from 100-150 average fps to 200-250 with the UHD texturess. The improvement was massive. I also experienced less stuttering overall, though there still is some, specially when I select some units or buildings for some reason.

[Please]

You can also put your powerplan to high, and disable global vsync, fixed it for me from 900 to 1200.

[remainedYoung]

Originally posted by Please don't cheat! ❤:

You can also put your powerplan to high, and disable global vsync, fixed it for me from 900 to 1200.

Indeed vsync should be turned off for sure, powerplan should not change anything though except ur on a laptop

[MVRK99]

I turned off hyperthreading and got the exact same number if it was on. 1122.8.

[von Clausewitz Style]

Why cant this game just run like the former edition ... i mean the graphics are only a little bit better ... How can this is so much harder for the same PC but even guys with high end computers have problems as you can see in the discussions so i just give it time in hope they fix this

[Ra 'alga0]

I noticed an improvement of ~50% from the second thread, but it did not scale after that.. it seems to not mind whether it is the second thread on the same core or from another core... i7-5930K

[MVRK99]

Maybe its a placebo but after turning HYPERTHREADING off, the menus seem to load faster, pre and post. Also, I feel that there is an overall sense of smoothness, regardless of me scoring the same number with hyperthreading turned on.

[Kinvadren]

Originally posted by Please don't cheat! ❤:

You can also put your powerplan to high, and disable global vsync, fixed it for me from 900 to 1200.

Turning on High Performance power mode in Windows increased my FPS by 5-10 frames and my benchmark from 1160 to 1175. The game seems to dislike fluctuating CPU clock speeds.

This actually makes a lot of sense. Windows sees that your CPU isn't being taxed so it downclocks it since it thinks it doesn't need the speed right now. Forcing High Performance mode ensures your CPU will usually run at full speed at the cost of being less power efficient.

[Ghost Robertson]

I haven't turned anything off for my cpu and got a multiplayer rank test score of 1252.7

My specs are -

I5 8500 (4Ghz six core)
16GB DDR4 2666mhz cl16
GTX 1660 6GB
Currently installed on a western digital cav black.

Not bad imo.

[remainedYoung]

Originally posted by BiC:

Maybe its a placebo but after turning HYPERTHREADING off, the menus seem to load faster, pre and post. Also, I feel that there is an overall sense of smoothness, regardless of me scoring the same number with hyperthreading turned on.

Basically AoE can use twice as much CPU power as with hyperthreading (since it can only use 1 thread not even a whole core). If you got very fast cores like in your case the difference is a little less, still it should be a difference.

[OfficialTT5]

aight just turned off SMT in my asus bios gonna see if it runs better now my benchmark was 1190 before i did anything in the bios and i have a ryzen 7 1700 @3.65ghz (auto OCed in bios)

[OfficialTT5]

and my performance increased by... oh wait it didn't now its 1191

[Pereb]

Originally posted by remainedYoung:

AoE2 DE will only use 1 THREAD and not 1 core. So by having multithreading or smt turned on you only use half a core.

That's not how hyperthreading works. Each thread from the same core can use its performance to the fullest.

If you are getting better performance with it disabled, SMT itself isn't the culprit. What are your specs? OS?

EDIT : I also get around same score with HT on and off with my i7-4790K (1240).