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Running Aion Effectively - Single Threaded vs Multi-Threaded


Mempo-KT

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While replying to another thread it occurred to me that very few players understand exactly why Aion seems like it runs terribly with amazing PC specs 8 years after it's release.

Allow me to explain, and hopefully save someone thousands of dollars in their efforts to run this dinosaur smoothly.

Lets go back 15 years (that's how old this stuff really is), long before Intel's misguided mitts grabbed us all by the nads with their hyperthreading magic. To the days when CryEngine 1, the infrastructure Aion is built on, was first being designed. Back then, technology was lagging behind a little, and the engine was built primarily to run Single Threaded Games.

Aion, and other Single Threaded Games, benefit most from fewer, more powerful cores, as opposed to the now widely popular many core, many multi-threaded CPUs being touted by Intel.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Above is a list of CPUs, gauged by their ability to run a single thread, and due to Aion being a single threaded game, the higher on this list the CPU is, the better the game will run.

Many people fall into the trap of thinking bigger and more expensive will undoubtedly run any video game better, when this is simply not the case, specially with these older games still running on now relatively ancient engines. As you can see, a $140 i3 will run Aion better than CPUs up to and well over 10x that price.

We had all just previously, wrongly assumed the game was just poorly optimized, when really it was our PCs that were poorly optimized.

"But Mempo, I want to have a million chrome tabs open while I watch Netflix and play Aion at the same time!"

That is a valid argument, and a tiny i3 will not likely hold up as well if you have many different processes going at once. Fortunately a lot of this has much more to do with Memory rather than CPU, and our tiny i3 will still likely be all you need.

"But Mempo, I want to play newer games too!"

That's perfectly fine. Of all those on the single thread list I recommend the i5 8600K, as it is a modestly priced CPU that will run Aion very well, as well as hold it's own with games that can benefit it's from multi-threading. You do not need an i7 or one of the new i9s on a gaming PC. Those CPUs are really there for business purposes; people rendering 4k video or doing very high quality modeling. Have you seen the Gantz:0 CGI on Netflix? THAT's what you need that kind of power for. 

"B-b-b-but Mempo, ma i7/i9!"

Sorry, you fell for the meme. Don't worry. We all did.

Now, while I couldn't find anything specific to Aion not tied to the old forums or in Korean, many other games have similar issues, and here is some further reading that could help clear up any lingering confusion.

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/156273-this-is-why-a-fast-cpu-not-the-amount-of-cores-or-the-gpu-is-important-for-ksp/

You are welcome.

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38 minutes ago, Ele-DN said:

No mention of AMD chips? lol 

 

 

I recommended AMD in the thread that originally brought up the topic, but AMD sets don't suffer the misunderstanding that Intel's do as they typically are able to perform regardless of threading.  Why bring up a topic that doesn't need addressing?

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This is a dead meme already.  Everyone knows Aion is unoptimized and that having less cores/less threads/better STP is better for games in general, not just Aion.  No matter what setup you have, regardless if you have the best dual/tri/quad core CPU with amazing STP, walking around Iluma will always guarantee terrible performance regardless of rig or settings.  The game simply can't fluently handle what it attempts to deliver during large scale pvp or a lot of moving models on screen (NPCs/players).  Trash optimization.

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