| Spindel said: It might be that you see some improvements with more cores, but isn’t that mainly because you unload OS and other background task to the other cores witch frees up more cycles on the core that runs the turn calculation. |
There are lots of reasons.
* Cache is often shared between multiple CPU cores, so if a Core is being underutilized, then another Core in theory has access to more overall cache.
* CPU's tend to turbo if TDP and loads are acceptable. I.E. A CPU is less likely to turbo on all-cores if they are loaded to 100%.
* In Civilizations case, they offload things like the UI and Audio onto other free cores, freeing up cycles for the cores that need it.
* And in the AMD FX's case, they have half the number of FP units anyway, so doubling down on core counts is beneficial in titles which are FP heavy.
| Spindel said: I remember the night and day difference in Civ V between the patch that allowed usage of multiple cores and how the game was before that patch. But the thing with that patch was that it unloaded the UI to the other cores while the turn calculation was still only done on one core. But suddenly you could actually browes different menus and stuff while turns where calculating and without it slowing down the turn calculation (since the core didn’t need to share cycles) (btw I always play on huge maps with maximum amount of civilizations -4, so late game always take a while between every turn). |
When I was playing around with Civilization 5, all my CPU cores were being utilized, bulk weren't being utilized to 100%, but certainly more overall than a 4-core CPU could have coped with.
There is of course a "Master Core" where the bulk of the games calculations are being done.
I have been running with a 6-core processor or better since 2010, so games scaling to more cores isn't a new concept to me.
| Spindel said: But I promise you both Civ 5 and Civ 6 will run one core 100% and one or two cores at 5-10% during a turn calculation. |
Depends on what else you have going on.
I was running the game at 5760x1080 and 7680x1440 resolutions back in the day. Never saw core utilization drop below 30% across every CPU core.
But the old Phenom 2 rig I had was always pegged at 100%.
| Spindel said: Since the game is turn based the game calculations have to be sequential. It can only calculate one AI at a time since the outcome of the actions of one AI may/will affect the next one i turn. Even within one AI each troop movement will effect the next so every calculation needs to be sequential and thus the really calculation heavy tasks (aside from graphics) can't be parallelised and won’t see much or any gain from using multiple cores (aside from unloading trivial tasks like sound, UI etc to other cores). |
Well. That is the design choice they took.
| Cerebralbore101 said: Thanks. So what exactly should I upgrade to? Can I get away with just upgrading the CPU? I've never been the sort of person that cares about graphics. I still play two to three gen 5 or 6 games a year. Edit: I think I'll just upgrade to the recommended specs for Civ 6 and Sega's Warhammer series. |
Depends on your budget.
But the Core i5 8600K is good value.
As well as AMD's Ryzen 5 2600X (6 cores). - I am seeing the Ryzen 5 1700 for a lower price than the Ryzen 5 2600X, which I would personally opt for due to the extra CPU cores.
You will need a new motherboard and new Ram.
GPU wise, the Radeon RX 580 and Geforce 1060 are good mid-range offerings, if you want cheaper than that though, the Radeon RX 570/Geforce 1050 Ti are good alternatives.
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--
