I've just refound this tool and don't want to withhold you.
In my GTX570SLI system I had that unparking trick already but with GTX680 I reinstalled the whole system and lost this tool and could not find it even after an hour of googling.
 
Window 7 will deliberately park some of your cores which will decrease FPS substantially in CPU eating games like GTA IV.
In my GTX570SLI setting I had about 110 FPS ingame onscreen. After changing to GTX680 I was really disappointed as I had meager 60 to 70 FPS. Now that I changed registry settings after reboot I get instantly about 100 FPS ingame (depending on the scene).
 
 
How To Disable CPU Core Parking For Multi-Core Processors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3u9eiskM4
 
So if You don't like to mess with registry here's a simple tool:
 
Disable CPU Core Parking Utility
http://www.coderbag.com/P...U-Core-Parking-Utility
 
 



 
 
 

Would this have any effect on Vista 64 or is it just a windows 7 thing?

Pretty slick. I had 3 parked cores on my i7 3930k according to that utility. I went ahead and told it to unpark them.
 
Thanks.

Thanks I'll give that a go on my laptop with a 460m and i7 920x in it to see if I get a boost!!

Cool little utility, nice an easy to do after a new install.
The 0,1,2 under the Number column are the number of entries in the registry I presume, i.e. 1 for each Power Profile?
 

As cool as this sounds it would be nice to have an explanation as to why they get parked in the first place. That way I know we are undoing something that is meant to help conserve your computer.

For example, some people disable the setting in the bios that underclocks your CPU when idle or not under stressful situations. That way their cpu is always running at 5ghz or whatever their clock is at all times so their computer responds instantly no matter what.

got 15 more FPS in BF3

I believe it's a power saving feature in Vista and 7, useful on a laptop
If you use the regedit method from kalim here, you can adjust core parking in windows power sttings
http://forum.notebookrevi...nside-windows-7-a.html
 

i like the idea of this but im a little sketchy on using it, anyway to turn it back to defaults using utility instead of just parking them urself again and will it return to automatic use of how it did before?
 
From the youtube vid i saw some games dont benift from it but not sure how u would find out which games do, like if metro 2033 did i be tempted to try this out cuz i just tested crysis 2 with resource window open and i still have 4 cores parked while in game which is interesting...

The program comes up with no results for me...weird.

Sure enough, play a game of BF3 in windowed mode and watch the CPU behavior in resource monitor, you will see Windows continue to park CPU's the whole time... I don't know if it would change much. Doesn't it park based on demand? So, if my CPU was only being used at 40% the OS will park unused/needed cores?

I just did this and sure enough my BF3 runs smoother. I don't notice a HUGE increase in performance, but it is definitely smoother (less/if not zero stutter).

Perhaps thats what got rid of my hiccup in bf3 then. I did the regedit but two of my logic cores stayed parked oh well.

chrisdglong


Sure enough, play a game of BF3 in windowed mode and watch the CPU behavior in resource monitor, you will see Windows continue to park CPU's the whole time... I don't know if it would change much. Doesn't it park based on demand? So, if my CPU was only being used at 40% the OS will park unused/needed cores?

 
Yeah i think it parks based on demand. It was parking some of mine, but running various applications changed it, and i ran prime95 and they all ran at 100%

logan801


Perhaps thats what got rid of my hiccup in bf3 then. I did the regedit but two of my logic cores stayed parked oh well.

You have to restart your computer. I thought the same when I first parked my cores, then I restarted and none were parked anymore. Apparently, if you disable hyperthread you get no parking either. This means there should be no negative impact of this over the disable hyperthread setting.

seedless strawberry

chrisdglong


Sure enough, play a game of BF3 in windowed mode and watch the CPU behavior in resource monitor, you will see Windows continue to park CPU's the whole time... I don't know if it would change much. Doesn't it park based on demand? So, if my CPU was only being used at 40% the OS will park unused/needed cores?

Yeah i think it parks based on demand. It was parking some of mine, but running various applications changed it, and i ran prime95 and they all ran at 100%

Yeah, but it does park and un-park all the time while playing BF3... I would suspect that this would cause the stutter that I was experiencing before disabling core parking.

thanks for this had 3 cores parked now unparked :D

I've got a 980X and I've run literally dozens of benches with cores either parking or unparked and the net result from that is: not measurable. There might be a very slight increase in responsiveness to the desktop or it could be my imagination.

Thats awesome man thanks. we can now truly use all 8 cores no parking.
 
I also noticed 1 other observation my cpu temp decreased a few degrees from idle at 39-40 degrees and now its 36-37 idle soo this to me is tripple threat i get to use all 8 core's from now on my temps went down a few degrees and lastly that means i can squeeze a bit more out of this system.
So windows is just trying to help but it comes at a cost, you enable cpu parking and you use less power, but you also gain more heat. because it has to process all info on minimum cores.
spreading the load out certainly would decreas the heat, but using more power and so you get more preformance. This should be a windows option if you want to conserve or go all out, and if you overclock you want all the power and resources you can get, and it don't matter what the hydro bill cost cause oc'ers don't care we just want more!
Give this guy a blue ribbon!
 

I took the plunge and tried it and was relieved to see option to put them back as were and it does seem to increase performance on metro ( only game i tested with ) cuz i been testing my OC 680 in that same spot watching FPS and i was around 49-51 in that spot then after the core unparked app, im getting 54-56 so its tiny in metro but def a improvment ^^
 
ty for the post and info :)

Easier method and more safe. Plus you can change it under the power settings.
 
http://www.techpowerup.co...536021&postcount=8
 
change the attribute from 1 to 0

Hm interesting, i just tested saints row the third and posted in thread yesterday about how for some reason my FPS was dipping down into the 40s for no reason. Now with this unparked cores, im staying at 60 and tested same area where i saved when i was getting 40s so idk if thats really what fixed it but gonna test some more and see. If so then kudos to u ^^

Wow thanks for this man, BR! unparked 3 of my fx8150 cores, i noticed some nice improvements in bf3 and even WoW. Now i gotta download all these games again lol.

Thanks for this, noticable difference in BF3. I don't seem to get the strange little stutters that cropped up  for no apparent reason anymore. Was quite frustrating to get perfect frame rates and then random stutters.

Has anyone else tried enabling it in the power profile? Does it work?

Yes it works or I would have not posted it. I am using that method currently. Works great.

FattysGoneWild


Yes it works or I would have not posted it. I am using that method currently. Works great.

Yes...been running it this way for quite awhile too...
 

 
 
 
 

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chrisdglong


Has anyone else tried enabling it in the power profile? Does it work?

I tried it and couldnt get the parked core feature to show up and I followed all the steps to enable it.
 
But, im on vista 64 so it might not work for me. I asked earlier if this was needed for Vista but no one answered.

Robs03gts

chrisdglong


Has anyone else tried enabling it in the power profile? Does it work?

I tried it and couldnt get the parked core feature to show up and I followed all the steps to enable it.

But, im on vista 64 so it might not work for me. I asked earlier if this was needed for Vista but no one answered.

 
Sorry, Robs, was occing since hours...
As the link posted aboved has stated this unfortunately works only for win 7. But, as fatty posted, you can try in your energy savings to crank up cpu usage to 100%. I've forgotten this way as I used this month ago, but didn't work for me.

HeavyHemi

FattysGoneWild


Yes it works or I would have not posted it. I am using that method currently. Works great.

Yes...been running it this way for quite awhile too...

Thanks Heavy, I just set it up like this and it runs great. Note: If you set it up the other way first, then you have reset all the original settings before doing it through the windows power management. Otherwise, it thinks it can only be set to 0%.