DiabloFans

Blizzard seems to be lazy when it comes to this, but... maybe? So we don't lag when theres like 50 monsters on screen?

That would be resources poorly spent. Although quad core is starting to become main stream, it's only really entering the market with a small percentile. Dual core still has the greatest market share and I believe it will stay that way for a few more years.

Also, no need to show 50 monsters on screen at once.
Also, games can be optimized for dual core to show 50 monsters.

I guess,

Guess that means Diablo 3 will be mostly GPU heavy?

It would be based on pure speculation if anyone were to claim it either way. We won't know anything until the beta is released, and even then, we might not see everything in terms of IQ until the game is shipped.

Quote from Don_guillotine

Diablo 3 is designed for the average computer. Although I have a quad core, too, I doubt D3 (just like SC2) will utilize much more than two cores.

But that's the point of IQ settings. Hopefully D3 will accommodate those who have average rigs, as well as those of us who can take advantage of the eye candy.

Diablo III will be most heavy on the GPU yes. Perhaps Physics calculations will run on the CPU, but that is just speculations.

I've a 6 core amd processor... so i've no chances to have it working at full load :/

If a game like this requires anything more than an average video card + a decently clocked dual core, then there are some serious optimization issues going on. This ain't Battlefield 3, the viewpoint is more or less fixed (huge advantage in rendering optimization cheats), and the back-end calculations are miniscule compared to a fully 3d environment (Such as say, GTA4, which also has a lot of individual entities )....

What, I can't use 8 cores for a game aimed at a moderate spec?

The horror

Quote from Hirgie

Quote from Exellon

Diablo III will be most heavy on the GPU yes. Perhaps Physics calculations will run on the CPU, but that is just speculations.

Isn´t the GPU predestinated for physic calculations? Nvidia offers especially designed "physiX" graphics boards for example.

On topic: I also think that they will support quadcore, as they do it in SC2 as well.

That is correct. PhysX is the name There are physics engines running on both GPU and CPU.

Cheers,

Quote from neryreginato

I've a 6 core amd processor... so i've no chances to have it working at full load :/

same boat as you my friend....1100T

Once you start multithreading for "dual-core" it's not that hard for quad or 8 to be supported. But most games don't seem to bother at all, content that the video card is the performance bottleneck.

Physics mostly comes from the CPU, or all of it, it is a very calculation heavy task which the CPU does, and is needed in order to keep physics on. A core 2 Quad runs SC2 with Physics on high with 2.7Ghz. So i don't expect the physics in this game to be too high as well. Nvidia specifically makes Physx, AMD has acquired Havok but honestly I have not heard a shred of evidence that their cards can do physics like a Dedicated Physx card. Also note to use a dedicated physx card you must actually have 2 Video cards, does not need to be same model but at least 2 are required, One for primary video, the other for dedicated PhysX processing. So i guess optimization on Four cores would be a good idea as most people do not have 2 GPUs lying around., and most having none at all. This would allow them to lessen the workload per core for physics and other math heavy calculations needed done by the CPU.

I'd like to add that multithreading (or multiprocessing) is a (fairly) new but very complex programming practice. Every time an algorithm is called, you must take into account which variables can and cannot be used simultaneously all the while trying to write meaningful code. Don't let that bother you too much - WoW and SWTOR are both single-threaded and they run just fine (from what I've seen of SWTOR).

Besides, the other cores can still work on other tasks such as OS and other processes.

what about my 6 cores

Physx cards are all but gone from the market. Nvidia purchased the tech, incorporated it into their drivers and is either run by the CPU or partially by the GPU. Alternatively, you can set a 2nd nvidia card to run as a physics only card, but in most cases you are better off using it as an SLI card... A caveat to this is that you can take an older generation or cheaper card and use it as the physx card, whereas SLI must be same/similar generation/speed cards.

http://www.nvidia.co.in/object/sli-technology-physx-in.html

I am 100% certain that Blizzard will not incorporate physx into their diablo 3 engine.

Multi-core optimization should not be aimed at a fixed number of cores. If you have 2 cores, you should use it, if you have 8, you should use it as well...

I think that those games optimzed to 2 cores are a little poorly programmed, because the developers doesn't aim in the full paralelization, only on dividing some tasks in half.

Not using multi-threading would be a waste of resources yes...but are they resources needed by the game rendering itself? I don't see D3 as being a graphics or physics intensive game. They could definitely split off threads to interact with the server and client in different ways though. You could, say, run your battle.net social interactions (chat, maybe even ventrillo-like interaction) through a separate thread, and Blizzard could run separate validation processes to help protect against botting/cheating without contaminating the main game processes. Also, I could see using a separate process to help with garbage collection and help keep the load down on your CPU. There are many ways to use multi-threading without having to necessarily split a single task among multiple processes through forking.

Quote from bgaimur

I am 100% certain that Blizzard will not incorporate physx into their diablo 3 engine.

PhysX is like a dedicated Physics engine, such as Havoks physics engine, but they used to use Havoks' then they dropped it for an internal Blizzard Physics engine. So yes you are correct D3 will not use the Nvidia PhysX engine. This does not mean however that The physics processing can not be done by a dedicated PhysX card.

Quote from Roger

Multi-core optimization should not be aimed at a fixed number of cores. If you have 2 cores, you should use it, if you have 8, you should use it as well...

I think that those games optimzed to 2 cores are a little poorly programmed, because the developers doesn't aim in the full paralelization, only on dividing some tasks in half.

It really isn't that easy. With codes you have multiples upon multiples of variables. Core optimization means that it will recognize that you have four cores, then distribute the workload evenly, while using it to the max potential, and making sure every variable in line with how many cores you use works Well.

Ex: I have a Single core Processor, So variable X in the games code now has "Single core" locked in it So it can now use Variables A,B,C, &, D dependent on something else in the system. Another person has a Dual Core computer, so in variable X it now has "Dual-Core" locked in it and now displays A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H, &I. This goes on until all core configurations have been filled out. Now when you go through the secondary variables you can Have for JUST A i,ii,iii, and iv. then for B, v, vi, vii ,viii ix, and x. etc... but now these ALL have to be optimized other wise it can actually cause the game to have a poorer performance which is exactly what they don't want.

The time it would take would be enormous to go through variables for all 12 core configurations. Then when patches and Exp's hit you have to make sure even that data is optimized otherwise you are in even more of a mess.