Anyone know how to stop older games from overusing cpu?

filmoret

For some reason the older games cause my cpu to overwork.  I think it might be a setting so the games don't run too fast or something I really haven't figured out why or how to stop it.  The only solution I have found that kinda works is to use task manager and assign the program to run on one core instead of all 8.  It seems to do this on just about all the older games no matter what settings I use.

Mount and Blade, Freelancer, Nox, Mass Effect 1, Red Faction Guerrilla, Medal of Honor 1

filmoret

I remember that dosbox would overuse the cpu so the games would run normally and not at 100x speed.  This is why I think it has something to do with this.

Nitth

filmoret said:

I remember that dosbox would overuse the cpu so the games would run normally and not at 100x speed.  This is why I think it has something to do with this.

https://superuser.com/questions/214566/are-there-solutions-that-can-limit-the-cpu-usage-of-a-process

Vrika

Many of the older games are designed to run at maximum possible FPS. If there's some in-game setting for limiting or adjusting the framerate, that might help.

If the game doesn't have any setting like this, you might try the graphic card's drivers. For NVidia graphic cards, you can use NVidia Profile Inspector -program to try setting a framerate. For AMD cards, see: http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/frtc

I don't know if this will help, though. I've had to several times overuse the CPU like DOSBox does to slow an older game down, but never limit the CPU usage. I think a good CPU cooler is much better solution.


EDIT: But it's a bit strange if assigning the program to work only on 1 core helps you. Older games normally use only 1 core anyway.

Ridelynn

What do you mean by "overwork"?

A CPU should be ok to run at 100% indefinitely. It's not efficient, I admit, but it shouldn't harm it.

Also, there is an older program called Dual Core Optimizer, that a lot of older games needed to run well on mutlicore systems. It says AMD because it was written by them, but it also works with Intel CPUs, and it works with more than just dual core CPUs. It won't fix every game, but sometimes that is all you need.

https://support.amd.com/en-us/search/utilities

filmoret

Vrika said:

Many of the older games are designed to run at maximum possible FPS. If there's some in-game setting for limiting or adjusting the framerate, that might help.

If the game doesn't have any setting like this, you might try the graphic card's drivers. For NVidia graphic cards, you can use NVidia Profile Inspector -program to try setting a framerate. For AMD cards, see: http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/frtc

I don't know if this will help, though. I've had to several times overuse the CPU like DOSBox does to slow an older game down, but never limit the CPU usage. I think a good CPU cooler is much better solution.


EDIT: But it's a bit strange if assigning the program to work only on 1 core helps you. Older games normally use only 1 core anyway.

I would think the unlimited fps would cause my graphics card to overwork and its doing perfectly fine.  Its the CPU that is having strange issues.  Yes the older games only use one core but I believe the newer versions of windows is using HT software so they are making everything use all the cores instead of just 1-4.

Vrika

filmoret said:

Vrika said:

Many of the older games are designed to run at maximum possible FPS. If there's some in-game setting for limiting or adjusting the framerate, that might help.

If the game doesn't have any setting like this, you might try the graphic card's drivers. For NVidia graphic cards, you can use NVidia Profile Inspector -program to try setting a framerate. For AMD cards, see: http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/frtc

I don't know if this will help, though. I've had to several times overuse the CPU like DOSBox does to slow an older game down, but never limit the CPU usage. I think a good CPU cooler is much better solution.


EDIT: But it's a bit strange if assigning the program to work only on 1 core helps you. Older games normally use only 1 core anyway.

I would think the unlimited fps would cause my graphics card to overwork and its doing perfectly fine.  Its the CPU that is having strange issues.  Yes the older games only use one core but I believe the newer versions of windows is using HT software so they are making everything use all the cores instead of just 1-4.

Does your Windows really show high CPU usage on all cores when you play? And have you checked that it's really caused by the game's process, and not something like Antivirus program running on background?

The only way I know a game like Mass Effect 1 would be able to overuse a processor with 8 cores is if a GPU were to emulate some (old) functionality on CPU. Maybe someone who knows about the tech better than me would know more?

Octagon7711

I've had no problems with ME1 but I did have a problem with Blade Runner, a bomb timer was tied into CPU speed so you got seconds instead of mins to defuse the bomb.  Some fans put out a mod that corrected the issue, so I would check around to see if others are having the same problems with the games you mentioned and have found a fix.

Quizzical

filmoret said:

Vrika said:

Many of the older games are designed to run at maximum possible FPS. If there's some in-game setting for limiting or adjusting the framerate, that might help.

If the game doesn't have any setting like this, you might try the graphic card's drivers. For NVidia graphic cards, you can use NVidia Profile Inspector -program to try setting a framerate. For AMD cards, see: http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/frtc

I don't know if this will help, though. I've had to several times overuse the CPU like DOSBox does to slow an older game down, but never limit the CPU usage. I think a good CPU cooler is much better solution.


EDIT: But it's a bit strange if assigning the program to work only on 1 core helps you. Older games normally use only 1 core anyway.

I would think the unlimited fps would cause my graphics card to overwork and its doing perfectly fine.  Its the CPU that is having strange issues.  Yes the older games only use one core but I believe the newer versions of windows is using HT software so they are making everything use all the cores instead of just 1-4.

Why are you worried about hardware being overworked?  Too much power usage and heat output?  Afraid that your hardware will break?

If a game is coded as single-threaded, it's going to run as single-threaded.  Windows might move that single thread around among CPU cores (though much less than Vista would have), but it's only going to use one core at a time.

If the game supports vertical sync, turn that on and you've got a frame rate cap right there.  That's been common for a long time.

filmoret

Its not showing high cpu usage but its running hot.  But for some reason when I assign the games to run on 1 core then the heat doesn't happen.  I really don't know what the problem is.  Only thing I can think of is that windows is running the program through all threads then overprocessing it so it runs slower.  But it doesn't show that the cpu is working hard because it can easily be used for something else without bogging the games down.

Ridelynn

It used to be possible to damage hardware via poor software causing it to overheat. But starting with the Pentium 4 around 2005, CPUs (and GPUs) instituted hardware-level thermal throttling, to protect themselves from runaway code pushing a CPU too hard and causing it to overheat. 

It's gotten very sophisticated since then - now chips can dial themselves to exact temperature or power levels and maintain that, even if there are some fan failures or bad case ventilation or whatever.

waynejr2

Have you tried to limit the number of cpus used?  Perhaps lower affinity?

Quizzical

filmoret said:

Its not showing high cpu usage but its running hot.  But for some reason when I assign the games to run on 1 core then the heat doesn't happen.  I really don't know what the problem is.  Only thing I can think of is that windows is running the program through all threads then overprocessing it so it runs slower.  But it doesn't show that the cpu is working hard because it can easily be used for something else without bogging the games down.

How hot is "hot"?