How Well Modern Linux Games Scale To Multiple CPU Cores

[Shevchen]

Don't be dense, I already listed two games from big name studios that already are making great showings of using 8c/16t (If I took the time I could probably find more and DX 11 titles appear to generally take advantage of 8 threads), and more are coming. The era of utilizing 2-4 cores/threads is long since a thing of the past for most games. Bethesda and other big devs have already announced they will be optimizing for Ryzen.

Furthermore it is exceptionally unlikely that intel won't shift to make i3s and below 4c/4t, i5s 4c/8t, and i7s 6c/12t (as a baseline) or something similar in order to respond to Ryzen.

Oh, I understand your position, no worries. My fear is just that we might hit a similar time, where we had to endure years of low-res games, because M$ and Sony did not upgrade their consoles, so pretty much all studios were stuck with old tech as a minimum-requirement, even thou PCs were outdoing the consoles 5-fold. We have a lot of... erm... "customers" that have potato-PCs and they might hold the rest back. The gap between entry-level PC and enthusiast PC is pretty big looking at the raw numbers of processing power. Game developers solved that by writing games that scale very well (thus your examples exist in the first place), but the minimum requirement is still 2 cores for most games. And here is the bottleneck: If I can render a game with two cores, there won't be much left for an 8C/16T powerhouse, beside "additional effects" - at least for the majority of games.

Yes, there are games that scale up to 8 cores, but the returns in FPS per additional core >3 are extremely low. So low, that an I5 might be viable for the next 7 years. But: If we could introduce effects/additional features that need more cores, but aren't relevant for playing the game bare (keyword potato), I could see a chance for Ryzen to level the playing field. (Which I would like to see)

[Luke_Wolf]

Oh, I understand your position, no worries. My fear is just that we might hit a similar time, where we had to endure years of low-res games, because M$ and Sony did not upgrade their consoles, so pretty much all studios were stuck with old tech as a minimum-requirement, even thou PCs were outdoing the consoles 5-fold. We have a lot of... erm... "customers" that have potato-PCs and they might hold the rest back. The gap between entry-level PC and enthusiast PC is pretty big looking at the raw numbers of processing power. Game developers solved that by writing games that scale very well (thus your examples exist in the first place), but the minimum requirement is still 2 cores for most games. And here is the bottleneck: If I can render a game with two cores, there won't be much left for an 8C/16T powerhouse, beside "additional effects" - at least for the majority of games.

Yes, there are games that scale up to 8 cores, but the returns in FPS per additional core >3 are extremely low. So low, that an I5 might be viable for the next 7 years. But: If we could introduce effects/additional features that need more cores, but aren't relevant for playing the game bare (keyword potato), I could see a chance for Ryzen to level the playing field. (Which I would like to see)

Lets just take a look at the minimum (and recommended in a few cases) requirements for some of the big recent games in the past year or two:

Doom:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit versions)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 670 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or better

Fallout 4:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent
  • Storage: 30 GB available space

Battlefield 1:
Minimum Requirements

• OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
• Processor (AMD): AMD FX-6350
• Processor (Intel): Intel Core i5 6600K
• Memory: 8GB RAM
• Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon™ HD 7850 2GB
• Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 660 2GB
• DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent
• Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
• Hard-drive space: 50GB

Resident Evil 7:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: WINDOWS® 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (64-BIT Required)
  • Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4460, 2.70GHz or AMD FX™-6300 or better
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 760 or AMD Radeon™ R7 260x with 2GB Video RAM
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 24 GB available space

Hitman:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: OS 64-bit Windows 7
  • Processor: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 / Radeon HD 7870
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 50 GB available space

Deus Ex MD:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: Windows 7.1SP1 or above (64-bit Operating System Required)
  • Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 or AMD equivalent
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB) or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (2GB)
  • Storage: 45 GB available space

• RECOMMENDED:
  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K or AMD FX 8350 Wraith
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 480 - 1920 x 1080 or NVIDIA GTX 970 - 1920 x 1080
  • Storage: 55 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: 55GB HD space includes DLC

Dishonoured 2:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit versions)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB or better
  • Storage: 60 GB available space

Watch Dogs 2:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64bit versions only)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5 2400s @ 2.5 GHz, AMD FX 6120 @ 3.5 GHz or better
  • Memory: 6 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 with 2 GB VRAM or AMD Radeon HD 7870, with 2 GB VRAM or better - See supported List*
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 27 GB available space

Shadow Warrior 2:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: Windows 7/8/8.1/10 x64
  • Processor: Intel Core i3-6300 (2 * 3800) or AMD A10-5800K APU (4 * 3800) or equivalent
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GT 560Ti (1024 MB) or Radeon HD 6850 (1024 MB) or better
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 14 GB available space

• RECOMMENDED:
  • OS: Windows 7/8/8.1/10 x64
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-5675C (4 * 3100) or AMD A10-7850K APU (4 * 3700) or equivalent
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 / ATI Radeon R9 290 with 4 GB of Video Memory (4096 MB) or Radeon HD 7970 (3072 MB)
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 14 GB available space

The Witcher 3:

• MINIMUM:
  • OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1) or 64-bit Windows 10
  • Processor: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940
  • Memory: 6 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660 / AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
  • Storage: 35 GB available space

They are generally supporting a backlog of computers, but it's not exactly as if more serious games are relying upon supporting potatoes.

[Shevchen]

Hmm... yes, not the worst rigs on the minimum requirement, esp. for the better games out there. Looking at Deus Ex MD, it goes from i3 to i7 - so this would be a game I'd take my example on, but the rest is already i5-ish and beyond. (which is the majority of games you posted)

Looking at this, either a lot of steam users are not serious about gaming (as most of them barely hit the minimum requirements), or the steam charts are misrepresented, showing a lot of computers registered on steam (maybe multiple lower-end laptops?), while the real game-machine is a dektop at home. I'd expect the majority of steam users to follow at least the minimum-requirements of modern AAA-games, as those are the ones selling the most. Am I missing something here?