Why aren’t more video games optimised for multi-core CPUs?

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It is common for modern video games to be badly optimised due to, partly, inefficient usage of multiple cores on a CPUs.

I’d assume that developers know this, but don’t have the time to rectify this.

So, therefore, what are the difficulties in utilising various cores of a CPU effectively? Why does it require so much focus, money, or perhaps time to implement?

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18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because it’s really, really, hard. In video games a lot of calculations depend on prior calculations. Things like drawing a scene have to be done sequentially. You can’t start shading until you do light. And you can’t do lighting until you calculate the Z buffer. So finding what things in your game actually can be done in parallel requires a lot of knowledge, both of the game itself and the underlying engine.

And that’s before you get into how many cores you do support. Sure maybe you could use a 2nd core, but what about a 4th? Not everyone playing is going to have a 4th core. Maybe that time is spent better optimizing the game as a whole then specifically only optimizing it for when there are extra cores.

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