[agracier]

I went to a Win 64bit system a month back.

And to the second part of my question - how to run Il-2 with multicore CPU (a Phenom II x3 at 2.8ghz)? Will there be any noticeable improvement over my old Athlon 3500+ 2.2ghz with the new CPU and more RAM (I'm still using an old Radeon x1650Pro though)? :wink:

Thanks!

There are several 64 bits systems and you should specify which one. There may be issues with one type of system and none with another. In any case I run my game on XP64 with a quadcore and the game and my whole system has never worked better.

The improvement in Il-2 is stunning. I used to be able to fly with 10 to 12 planes max during a mission, now the game handles 100 with no problem. It is like turning on a light switch in the darkness.

You can also configure the game so that it makes use of 1, 2, 3 or 4 cores.

This is a quote i saved from a previous post on the question of multicores. I forget who originally posted it, but it is so useful I saved it for future reference. All credit to the member who figured this out.
____________

This is the way the ProcessAffinityMask value works in IL2.

Actually, using the ProcessAffinityMask and the numbers 1 thru 15, yes that's 15 separate times, I discovered that IL2-46 modded to 4.09b1m would use what ever number was specified in the conf.ini. Here's how I did it. I ran it in window mode and using AMD's power monitor and task manager I can tell the game to use nearly any combination of cpus.

If ProcessAffinityMask=
;1=core #1,
;2=core #2,
;3=core's 1 & 2
;4=core #3,
;5=core's 1 & 3
;6=core's 2 & 3
;7=ALL core's
;8=core #4,
;9=core's #1 3 & 4
;10=core's 2, 3 & 4
;11= core's #1, 2 & 4
;12=core's 3 & 4,
;14= core's 2, 3, &4
;15 or 0=ALL 4 core's



If it is commented out the OS will decide which cores to use. ie All cores.
"IL-2 is not a multithread application." True
IL-2 only uses 1 core" False.
so PAF....

=1 - core 0
=2 - core 1
=3 - core 0+1
=4 - core 2
=5 - core 0+2
=6 - core 1+2
=7 - core 0+1+2

commented out - all cores

If a core is enabled, it does NOT mean that core will be performing 100% while the other cores that are not enabled do nothing.
The enabled core needs an active thread to perform,
The disabled cores will be assigned tasks by the OS if needed.
There is only one way to switch off cores - the power switch - meaning all or nothing lol.

There was an long thread at SimHQ some time back exploring this(end 2005/beginning of 2006).

a '1' bit will enable the core, a '0' bit disables it.
Actual activity of cores can be checked through TaskManager. Keep in mind in general Windows OS runs hundreds of threads at the same time IL-2 runs.

A substantial part of IL-2 is written in Java which can use in excess of 100 threads. (source: Sun Microsystems) Shift-Tab opens the Java console in-game Yep that's where all those white messages come from.

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000000000 = Decimal 0
Processor affinity is off, and the load is distributed across all available processors.

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000000001 = Decimal 1
Processor 1 selected. The process will only run on processor 1.

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000000010 = Decimal 2
Processor 2 selected. The process will only run on processor 2.

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000000011 = Decimal 3
Processors 1 & 2 selected. The load is distributed across both processors, effectively the same as setting 0 above for Dual cores.

Because 0 puts the load across all processors and 3 puts the load on processor 1 and 2, they are essentially the same thing for Dual core CPUs.

For Quad core CPUs you can use more values:

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000000100 = Decimal 4
Processor 3 selected. The process will only run on processor 3.

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000001000 = Decimal 8
Processor 4 selected. The process will only run on processor 4.

And any combo between 0 and 15, for example:

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000000101 = Decimal 5
Processor 1 and 3 selected. The load is distributed across processor 1 and 3.

Bitmask: 00000000000000000000000000001111 = Decimal 15
Processor 1, 2, 3, and 4 selected. The load is distributed across all processors, 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Get the picture?