I can’t speak to the Windows experience, but on Linux (via Proton) the game is launching with /x64/Grim Dawn.exe’s CPU affinity set to only use 1 core. Manual intervention after every launch is required to make the game properly spread its load out across the available CPUs via either the system monitor or taskset in the terminal.
Using up-to-date public beta build. Not sure if this was the case in 1.2.x. Other games/applications aren’t having any similar problems. CPU-wise I’m on a Ryzen 5 3600 (12 cores) and playing via GE-Proton11-1. I have deferred rendering enabled, all other settings set to max, haven’t touched options.txt, and am not using any launch variables other than /x64.
And here’s a quick screenshot of the system monitor showing the CPU usage difference comparing a lap around Coven’s Refuge (the dip between is when I alt-tabbed to run taskset -pc 0-11 $(pidof 'Grim Dawn.exe')):
And your point is… what, exactly? What you linked states the game isn’t actually single core despite that being a misconception, which I already know because of my own tests, and the problem I’m highlighting is that it’s being forcibly limited to one. This has nothing to do with “GPU vs CPU” discussions or performance complaints in general.
EDIT
This is the problem I’m referring to, in case I’m somehow being unclear:
Iirc I had this issue on Windows as well but now that I’m a Linux enjoyer, I run taskset -c 1-5 and it balances the load on my setup. Without it, my core 0 gets to 100% every now and then, which makes the game stutter.
Yeah, using taskset definitely makes a big difference in preventing 100% overload and certainly works as a somewhat annoying workaround (since it has to be done every launch). I just don’t think it’s the devs’ intention for the game to be limited that way to begin with, hence the bug report. Seems to me they’ve clarified many times over the years that the game, while CPU-heavy, is not truly single-core… but that’s precisely what the current default affinity issue forces the game to be.
Hell, even if it was truly single-core that kind of forced affinity setting is super weird. I play plenty of old games still (many of which are genuinely single-core) and that’s just not how any of them do it. Case in point: I just tested my classic Diablo 2 LoD install and it works as expected: with all cores available.
by same i mean the game only uses the one core as evident by the load, in windows it’s just not actually displayed as disabled all the other cores in taskmanager affinity, unlike ketchup’s lunix pic,
but turning affinity off or off+on again then redistributes load as if other cores got woken up, (but only for some people/systems)
Kindly go away @ibugsy. Your attitude, backseating, and predictable goalpost-moving isn’t helpful or even relevant since you still somehow don’t seem to understand the difference between something being “cpu bound” and “only a single cpu is even being allowed access”.
And for the record I did do your suggested search, which is in part how I know that it’s a completely unrelated topic.
I was one of the people that (re)wrote the Linux version of the Core Switcher script years ago, but at the time I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t that my system needed to refresh the affinities… rather it needed to enabled them at all to begin with.
ye i’m not a “tech guy” so i’ve no clue why or what’s actually happening windows wise,
just that something is definitely happening,
but at the same time also usual "computers are black magick"enough it’s not even uniform across different users
whether it’s purely OS or game baked in or bit of both i’ve then no clue, but “something” is there, and has been for years as evident by the tools/tricks even being discovered or created.
*it even caused the conspiracy settings theory thing,
where people thought you need to change resource threads in options.txt, but that then does actually nothing, and iirc Crate even confirmed it doesn’t control what people thought/“is placebo”, when people adamantly insisted it was the line/setting devs needed to fix
→
yes… attitude bugsy, “it’s a windows thing too”, has objectively been a thing for years… you’re ignoring everything everyone else is pointing out… Linux might just be what’s highlighting it with a screenshot because it doesn’t have the same support, but it’s not exclusively a linux issue
Oh cool, I was thinking of writing a similar script as an excersize based on your post.
Then I realized I could just use the steam launch options and got lazy
Yep, I agree but unfortunately doubt it’s going to be addressed, since from what I can tell this has been going on for quite some time and there are other posts of similar issues
Well seeing how this has been reassigned to “General Discussion” without comment I can assume it’s being ignored as a bug. I still maintain that it is one and that until now its symptoms have been incorrectly attributed to other issues, but this has already occupied too much mental real estate so I give up.
The facts are that the game isn’t just sometimes over-using a single core, it’s being forcibly limited to one in a way that isn’t normal and the various tinkerings in the past (e.g. Core Switcher) weren’t working toggling magic but rather enabling cores that shouldn’t have been disabled to begin with.
I will point out that this means any claims made about the game not actually being single-core are categorically false because the end result is precisely that. Clearly it’s not meant to be since un-fucking the affinity works as an annoying workaround (and none of the 1000s of games from the 1980s to now that I’ve tested on this setup do this), but apparently that’s not important enough to address. Maybe another decade of threads complaining about it in vague, roundabout ways will nudge the meter.
And if it’s the lazy cop-out of “LiNuz iSn’T SUpOrOtirreD” then 1) I’ll be sure to lie in the future, and 2) it has nothing to do with my OS and anyone taking more than half a second to consider the problem should realize that.
You can just add taskset -c 1-11 %command% in Steam launch options and it works automatically (since you mentioned alt-tabbing to set it manually). At least in my experience, including core 0 in the range makes the behavior the same as without taskset, while excluding it spreads out the load.
