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Turn10 confirms that Forza Motorsport 7 intentionally maxes out only one CPU core

94 Comments

A couple of days ago, we informed you about some bizarre CPU utilization we witnessed in the PC demo of Forza Motorsport 7. And while some claimed that we were a bit hasty about our observations – as this is a demo – it appears that we were right. Turn10’s Evan Bolin has confirmed that the game is intentionally maxing out one CPU core.

As Evan claimed, the game is using 100% of one CPU core and that is an expected behaviour.

“Some users may notice that the game utilizes nearly 100% of one of their processor cores. This is expected behavior; we intentionally run in this manner so we can react as fast as possible in order to minimize input latency. Users on power-constrained devices, such as laptops and tablets, might want to use a Performance Target of “30 FPS (V-SYNC),” which will reduce processor usage and minimize power consumption.”

Now the problem with Forza Motorsport 7 is that there is noticeable stuttering in the menus, and occasional (though not as frequent on our i7 CPU) stuttering while playing. Not only that, but it feels really weird witnessing a game that does not scale great on more than two CPU cores.

Furthermore, this similar issue was present in Forza Horizon 3. However, Turn10 worked with Playground Games and released a patch that fixed the awful multi-threading CPU scaling.

Since Turn10 acknowledged this issue, it’s pretty safe to say that the final build will behave similarly to the demo. The good news here is that the demo was running with constant 60fps on our PC test system, despite the fact that only two of our CPU cores were maxed out.

Whether Turn10 will release a patch in order to offer better CPU multi-threading capabilities remains to be seen!

UPDATE:

Microsoft PR told WCCFTech that Forza Motorsport 7 is not limited to running on one core, and that the game can use as many cores as are available. Do note that we never claimed that the game does not scale on more than one or two CPU cores.

“Forza Motorsport 7 is not limited to running on one core. There seems to have been a miscommunication along the way. “Forza Motorsport 7” uses as many cores as are available on whatever system it runs on, whether that is a 4- to 16-core PC or the 7 cores available on Xbox One.”

However, and as we have already showcased, it’s a fact that the game maxes out one or two CPU cores. As such, and despite MS’ claims, this will undoubtedly lead to CPU bottlenecks due to this awkward behaviour (which obviously can be resolved by implementing better multi-threading functionalities). After all, this exact thing happened with Forza Horizon 3 (though the CPU limitations in that particular game affected even those with high-end CPUs, not just those with low-end CPUs).

94 thoughts on “Turn10 confirms that Forza Motorsport 7 intentionally maxes out only one CPU core”

  1. Microshaft can’t even properly optimize their own games they endorse
    maybe it’s all a trick? to promote their windows 10 “gamer mode” app?

    my money’s on general incompetence

    Reply

      1. Who knows with Microsoft.

        Just yesterday someone I know theorised Phil Spencer can’t possibly be that stupid as to actually sh*tcan all those Microsoft exclusives, leaving the Scorpio with literally nothing but sh*ts & giggles to market itself on, but honestly…..

        Hell if I know.

        Hey, maybe they went over budget & someone told them to f*ck off when they asked for more money, so they figured “okay, it’s a feature. The moron wallets won’t give a f*ck anyway, they’re just a bunch of r*tards, after all!”

        I mean, we know they think we’re morons, so the only remaining question is whether or not they themselves are morons, or just purposefully acting like morons, in order to make us think they’re morons, in order to…..

        Skynet?

        Reply

        1. Why would you speculate that much in first place though?

          “This is expected behavior; we intentionally run in this manner so we can react as fast…”

          Keyword is “We”. They are acknowledging that they themselves made this decision. End of story.

          Reply

          1. “Why would you speculate that much in first place though?”

            I can’t resist…. It’s just too stupid…..

  7. Microshaft can’t even properly optimize their own games they endorse maybe it’s all a trick? to promote their windows 10 “gamer mode” app?my money’s on general incompetence

    Reply

  8. Translation. “Even though we use multicore on our console, with a CPU that is worse than Intel Q Quads from 2008, we were ordered by used car salesman and professional liar, Phil Spencer to intentionally sabotage this game on PC. This is so we can make our dumb console look better. We did the same with Forza Horizon, when Apex was coded well. We only fixed Horizon before Forza 7 released, so that we could again bait and switch PC Gamers into buying a sabotaged title. We will pay/sponsor unethical people like Wichard at Digital Foundry to claim the port is glorious, just like Horizon, and we will only fix it after months of real journalists like DSO showing that our CPU threading is a joke. We will never care about PC Gaming, the store is just Games For Windows Live 2.0 and we are in it for the API monopoly and to ruin PC Gaming permanently with UWP. If you call us out we will attack you with our online shills/astroturfers. You are too stupid to even call the FTC on us, even though we have been busted like 20 times before, doing this on all our products. Phones, consoles, Internet Explorer, OS’s. Anyways, thank you for purchasing Windows 10 sucker, your pal MS.”

    Reply

      1. And here I was just thinking, where’s Sp4ctr0 with his bullsh*t graphs ready & waiting to tell us all how we’re just a bunch of f*cking morons who are doing something wrong, and ALL HAIL THE UNDYING, UNDENIABLE GLORY & MAJESTY THAT IS MICROSOFT!

        Reply

        1. I only said that in my opinion more games in future will use single thread for all graphics related operations.

          Xbox have very fast additional hardware unit for preparing draw calls. Single unit. So probably game must do all graphics operations in single thread to use that new hardware. PC conversion will map that to single thread of CPU.

          We will need wait a few months to see if this is true

          Reply

          1. “more games in future will use single thread for all graphics related operations.”

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e58b9eb01aad62d91eb286d2ab69afeeb320892eb23e897cc02a29206b2b535.jpg

            At best, we’ll get more sh*tty Microsoft Windows 10 UWP ports using one core because the developers are either too lazy or too stupid to do the work properly. Everyone else – i.e. every-single-person in this industry that doesn’t work exclusively with UWP &/or isn’t a Microsoft first-party Slave wouldn’t

            EVER

            DARE

            BE

            SO

            F*CKING

            STUPID.

          2. i’m surprised. I thought you like single threaded games. You always said to me that you like Windows 7 with DX11 more than Windows 10.

            All DX11 games use only single thread for all graphics operations. MS have long history of supporting only one thread for graphics…

          4. Project Cars 2 is the perfect example of a DX11 games which can take advantage of Multi and hyperthreading…

            Turn 10 using DX12, a Microsoft API used by a Microsoft devs, is ridiculized by an independent studio using DX11…

          5. Quantum Break over 100FPS in DX11 on a GTX 1070/i5 4690K, 144FPS quite a few areas of the game, so get rekt.

          6. “At best, we’ll get more sh*tty Microsoft Windows 10 UWP ports using one core because the developers are either too lazy or too stupid to do the work properly.”
            Welcome back to the 90’s 😉

          7. One thing is for sure. MS wants us to buy their games and play on their win10 and use Wstore but GOD DAMNNNNnnn

            They’re doing everything they can to fakkk it up… this pisses me off.

          8. One thing is for sure. MS wants us to buy their games and play on their win10 and use Wstore but GOD DAMNNNNnnn

            They’re doing everything they can to fakkk it up… this pleases me enormously.

          11. humor me please,why project cars 2 use more cpu cores without having such latency issues while having decent performance and looking in many way even better than forza 7?

          12. No one here can answer that because none of us has seen the code for either game. Your only gonna get a bunch of speculative answers from non programmers and fanboys asking that question here.

          13. you realise that PC games generally scale to 4 or more threads and have been going even beyond that more recently?

          14. Game developers have been making their code work well with DX11 multihtreading for years now but the main question is, how CPU bound is the game and if it’s quite highly CPU bound then something like an i7 will be more better over an i5, Fallout 4 is a good example.

            Also, that XB1X properganda image of it only using 66% GPU, well, we know now is was properganda, since a GTX 1070 at 4K/60fps/Ultra only uses 60% GPU usage. Basically the game is made to run on a potato, like the XB1.

      2. Sorry I don’t speak astroturfer. I did report you to the FTC though and for doing this on multiple sites, including WCCFTECH. I sent them a google search of all your posts and it is pretty evident who and what you are. Enjoy the minimum 16,000 dollar fine and as for MS who hired you? #%^$^ you.

        Reply

      3. Oh, I thought you weren’t following anymore blog posts about PC gaming because your rig was way less powerful than the Xbox X Scorpio Blaster Ninja Turbo whatever so you decided to sell it in order to get said console.

        Guess you changed your mind. It’s alright, the best gaming experience will always be found in PC kid.

        Reply

        1. And Why Horyzon and Uncharted 4 has best graphics on all platforms?This blog is absolutely trash. Normal pc gamers you can find only neogaf. Pc gamers=shittest people in the world. THats opinion of majority gamers.

          Reply

          1. You surely are blind if you think ‘Horyzon’ and Uncharted 4 (is that the interactive movie? Those are easy to make nice, just like cutscenes in some games look better than actual gameplay) have the best visuals around. But I won’t blame you if you’re a little blind; after all those years at 15~30 FPS your eyes must be damaged.

            I had a brief experience in the console world; it was awful. The whole experience seemed subpar compared to PC. Not only the graphics or the framerate; even the sound, the absence of ENB mods or SweetFX, well, the absence of mods at all. But the controls… jeez. I mean, how can people even play a shooter (first or third) with a controller??? Autoaim, quickturn?? Pile of BS. Where’s the skill? The lack of choice in fancy peripherals? Come on, nothing beats the looks and feel of some Razer gaming keypad, mouse, keyboard, arcade stick and controller, etc. The lack of customization in the chassis?

            Consoles seem so subpar kid.

          3. Because they’re not kid. PC is far more popular than all the conslows.

            62% of gamers use a PC while 56% use a console.

            How do you think PC become the second most profitable gaming market (behind mobile) in 2016?

    3. Man you got triggered. The game rans fine on my once high end box (5820k + 980ti) so anyone with a two or three year old gaming PC should be able to get a stable 60fps with everything maxed.

      Reply

  10. I can’t believe what this guy is saying… if this game was so reliant on single core performance how come they recommend an fx 8350 for 60 fps and an fx6300 for 30 FPS.
    This caughts my attention as the game runs at 60 FPS on a machine with a tablet cpu. And this guy has the nerve to tell users to cap the fps to 30?

    Reply

  11. Seems that people didnt truly understand what he was saying, if he was being sincere or not is another thing. Anyway, the game is definitly using well beyond 2 cores, but 1 is being used the most. On the last cpu performance analisis from dso, it was clear that 2 of the cpus were being maxed out but at least 4 other cores were higher than 50. I can only imagine that using dynamic options which supposedly adjust graphics on the fly, is very taxing on one cpu core.

    Reply

    1. On FM7, you can have frame drops even with plenty of unused ressources on both CPU and GPU.

      That’s just unbelievable.

      Psionicinversion is right, test it by yourself

      Reply

    2. That doesn’t make any sense. If one core is maxed out, you automatically add more input lag instead of less, because now you have to wait for that CPU core to free up to do anything else on any other core.

      Reply

      1. Well, i think it’s not exactly true, it will depend on the function that the thread is doing on the cpu core, if it has exclusive use of that core for that super intensive thread, the turn around time could be lowered and latency too as a result, instead of going thru multiple threads, is not like everything being coded for multi thread is the best solution always, it is not, but is generally a better option for the general user.
        Still what ever this thread is doing i don’t think it should justify MS to make use of it in that way.
        Don’t get me wrong, i’am all for more cores and balanced use, i just think people should study a little bit more and talk accordingly to the message he is talking about.
        I’m quite sure that MS is more responsible for that choice rather than the Devs itself.

        Reply

    1. It’s a massive multi-billion-dollar modern-day corporation. The real question you should be asking is;

      How do they ever actually get anything done.

      Reply

  16. MS has Xbox Live subs (where they make most of their Xbox Division money) and a console they need to sell to people, and since PC players do not pay for Xbox Live they can only get us subbing on their consoles. Simple really: sleazy marketing scheme to make their console more appealing.

    According to DSOG, Slightly Mad had no issues properly optimizing cores for PCars 2, so this “maxing out” one single core is just intentionally “gimping” their Xbox Live competitive platform marketing. PC online is free vs Xbox Live. I think it’s clear.

    MS execs are masters at perverting perceptions for marketing purposes – especially for their own game. We are not fooled by this. This is not incompetence guys. This is as sleazy as marketing gets – especially when Turn 10 proved that after they finally “fixed” (i.e. un-gimped) FH3 to run on more than one core it ran great.

    MS knows EXACTLY what they are doing. If F7 runs optimally on PC then people will not be as excited to by an xbonex.

    Reply

    1. Have you tried the demo? Does it run horribly on your PC? If not why do you cares how it’s programmed? You seem to looking for a reason to get upset. The demo runs fine (above 60fps at all times) on my overclocked 5820k so it may run fine on your pc.

      Reply

      1. The game runs fine on your “OVERCLOCKED” 5820k so there’s no problem at all —_— . All the problems these people are talking about are illusions, right?

        Reply

  17. Your right it is very bad, as a dev you never want to see that happen. It actually does the opposite and causes lag, I work on / make game engines. You never ever want any of your CPU cores to be maxed out(basically you would never want this purposely, that sounds crazy to me). That is called a CPU bottle neck. Truth is you really don’t want any of them to go past 75 – 80% usage if you don’t want any latency, hitching, stuttering etc. I just spent almost a whole year multi coreing my game engines systems. So this stuff is real fresh in my mind for I am just finishing it all up right now(for the PC build).

    I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me for I want my game on the Xbox One and X eventually but it seems like a total false statement to me. Even if there was any merit to the claim(which I can’t think of any) you could leave your IO code only to be none multi threaded and make the rest of your engine all mutli threaded(with out the parts that can’t be of course). Still the IO would never and I stress NEVER max out a CPU core. IO code is minimal in the grand scheme of a game engine and probably the most basic part of a game engine. It just will never task you game or engine.

    My thoughts are straight up WTF? Why would anyone ever say that? Maybe I am missing something…

    The whole point of multi coreing code is so that in your update block of you game never waits or locks up and caries on. When you don’t use multi threading you can create stutters, hitching and latency in stressed out cores or large loads.

    Anyways just telling it how it is from my PC development experience and what I am working on right now. Very odd… but Horizon 3 on the PC now runs perfectly and is spread on all the cores of your system… is this not the same game engine and dev? What the… it makes no sense to me 🙁

    Reply

  18. Such issue is not surprising when you consider what they have done with Apex.

    This is dumb, completely dumb. With Turn 10, we are back in the 90’s…

    Reply

  21. I don’t care where they put the CPU utilization as long as the game runs great, and for me it does. In game I get stutter free gameplay at a constant 60 fps (can’t figure out how to set it to 144hz if it’s possible). I do get the menu stuttering, but I think that’s just some sort of HDD access causing that. Ryzen 1700 here.

    Reply

    1. the point here is that it’s *not* running great. The game is very clearly CPU limited. my 1080ti has is only sitting at about 30% usage yet the game can’t get past 71 on my 144hz gsync monitor. (so you see, it’s not capped to 60 FPS at all)

      Reply

    2. You should care because a few core going 100% is bad and yes it is CPU not storage as the 2 cores go 100% in the menus while the other 2 are lower usage. This is bad, a core going 100% causes a bottleneck, you genrally don’t want CPU cores hitting 100%.

      Reply

      1. I dunno. I looks like once the cores max it just pours over onto the next. I could be wrong, and it might not be working properly (as some seem to be having problems with it). However, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with maxing out a core before moving to the next. It’s not a real temperature problem or anything unless they’re all pegged.

        Reply

        1. The load is supposed to spread across the cores, once you hit all cores 100% then that means your CPU bottlenecked. Quite a few games do it, like AC Unity, Ghost recon Wildlands but this usually happened at 1080p.

          Reply

          1. If it’s poorly coded, sure. However, if it’s actually designed to do so, it should in theory be able to prevent a bottleneck as long as the other cores are open for work. It’s not a bottleneck if the engine can still use the others. We don’t know how the engine is supposed to work, so it’s all guess work at the moment. Besides, how many games use cores evenly anyway? Basically none.

  22. Glad I’ve never brought any WIndows store games, not buying Forza 7 ether, Project Cars 2 all the way.

    Reply

  23. So MS, the company behind DX12, which is an API that only exists to fix the multicore usage problem from DX11, while also lowering input lag, is releasing a DX12 game, that only uses one core?

    This is either sabotage like many people are claiming, to make the new xbox look good. or this port is so shity and done in a way that is so lazy that the people responsible for it should be fired.

    Reply

  25. “Users on power-constrained devices, such as laptops and tablets, might want to use a Performance Target of “30 FPS (V-SYNC),” which will reduce processor usage and minimize power consumption.”

    Does this count high ending laptop with i7 7700hq, or is this only for laptops with i77500u?

    Reply

  27. SMH, that’s not how computers work. If one core is maxed the OS’s scheduler will assign other tasks to the three to seven unused cores on your cpu. Having one core maxed will not reduce your frame rate infact it could increase it. Most modern cpus have a belt in overclocking feature if one or two cores is maxed. You may see lower performance if you have cpu with low single threaded ipc (like AMD’s Bulldozer based apu’s and cpu’s) or a dual core cpu like Intel’s Pentium G line or most mobile cpu’s.

    Reply

  30. It’s not big of a deal with that CPU usage when you have sach an amazing optimisation even in 8K(200 res.scale) with GTX 1080Ti you have 60+ fps. And I more than confident that Turn10 will fix this little issue.

    Reply

  31. Microsoft PR reached out to us in regards to this topic, delivering a
    statement from Turn 10’s Studio Software Architect Chris Tector. You can
    find it in its entirety below:

    “Forza Motorsport 7 is not limited to running on one core. There seems
    to have been a miscommunication along the way. “Forza Motorsport 7” uses
    as many cores as are available on whatever system it runs on, whether
    that is a 4- to 16-core PC or the 7 cores available on Xbox One.”

    Reply

  32. And yet in the menus it stutters and goes 100% on one core, in the game it doesn’t balance CPU cores properly and thats probably why there is improper frame times. My goodness, even DX11 coded games can do this right, yet their DX12 game can’t.

    Reply

  34. The game does use more than 1 core, it’s just that the 1st core is used primarily and the others are secondary, as 99% percent of current games.

    Reply

  37. Getting some really poor performance (relative to hardware being used) due to it maxing out 2 threads. GPU usage just sits at 40-60%

    Reply

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