I actually just stumbled on this and I'm wondering if there are people here who knows more about it. I don't recall ever reading about this on here. If it has been discussed before and I missed it, sorry for the double post.

The source I was reading came from here: ParkControl

It is the idea that most multicore CPUs have a state called "park" when it is idle in order to conserve energy. When the CPU is needed, then it is unparked. This constant park and unparking creates latency in order to save energy, reducing the performance. So theoretically, by unparking them, it will increase your CPU performance but also increase power usage. The argument is that Windows OS is too aggresive in energy saving, so most of the time our CPU is not being used efficiently enough.

The source I listed has a program that allows you to unpark 1 or all of your CPUs. I actually do not prefer 3rd party programs, but the source also provided a reg change that will allow this built-in option to show up in the power management "advanced mode." This is the method I chose. You can either use the reg modifier in the link or manually change it yourself by finding the registry. Simply change it from "1" to "0" to turn it on. So I went ahead and changed the option in the power management. This will "display" the option in the power management.

The Windows 7 default is at 10%. It means that at the OS will maintain minimum 10% active cores, meaning it can park 90% of your CPUs. This really IS aggressive. For the sake of testing, I set it to 100%, meaning all cores must be unparked.

Honestly, there definitely is performance increase. I just happen to be running my TS3 in a winter blizzard storm. With all the CPUs unparked, the FPS and overall game during the storm was noticeably smoother and faster. I didn't actually check the actual FPS difference since this is difficult for my system. I'm already running an i7 with enough RAM and a dedicated GPU, so my game is hindered by the HDD. This also means that the performance increase on my TS3 is very minimal.

I suspect that this would probably be more benefitial to others who are either using Intel HD GPU or a slower CPU or using fast SSD that can still use a CPU boost. According to the article, this method also benefit AMD users more than Intel, since AMD's hyperthreading is a lot better. I have a generation 3 i7, according to their benchmark, it is a 35% performance increase. Judging from my own testing, that seems just about right.

So you may want to give this a try to see if it boost your game. Let me sum it up.

1) It seems to be for Win 7 and higher. It said that Win XP does not have this parking issue. But you can always check.
2) It doesn't work on ALL cpus. Follow the instruction in the source link above to check your "resource monitor" to see if you have any parked cpus. Some cpus do not come with a park option, so their cores are always unparked. i3s would probably NOT benefit since it is only 2 cores and likely they're always unparked anyways. But.. again, you can check if you like.
3) You do not have to use the 3rd party program. You can use the reg file in the source link to modify your registry to turn on this built in option in your power management. (or you can find the registry yourself and change it. This just enable the "display" of the option, it doesn't actually change the parking/unparking settings.) This is my preferred method. Once it is on, click your battery/plug icon, go to power option, click "advanced power option" and go to "processor power management." You will see it there. There is a screenshot of this in the source link. Set it to whatever % you want. 100% meaning all unparked.
4) On some other forums, I've read people who are scared of overheating etc... The source link said this is not an issue b/c overheating is not the result of parking or unparking, but how heavy is the cpu load. I agree. In my testing, I saw NO temperature change on my laptop. However, because there are concerns about this and every CPU is different, it is recommended you try at your own risk and also with a temperature monitor such as Core Temp 1.0.
5) As I've mentioned in my own testing, if you have already a fast CPUand plenty of RAM, increase in CPU may not increase your game performance if your game is being limited by the HDD. If anything, it might even lag it because the HDD cannot keep up with a faster CPU. So this method seems to benefit the most for people who need more CPU boost - Intel HD users, slower CPUs, or people who are running on fast SSD drives.
6) So there's no misunderstanding. This merely remove the latency between parking and unparking a cpu. It does not "increase" your CPU frequency or increase your CPU load. Those are separate issues.

If you wish to test and try this, please report back and help build up a knowledge base.

Thank you and Good Luck!

EDIT: If you are using the app in the link.


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Click Here for Updated Testing Information

Confirmed Improvements:
* Less idling sims
* More sims on public lots (Less idling, so they get to the lots faster)
* Animation smoother, no hiccups
* Sims no longer stuck on changing clothes
* Speed 3 now useful
* Graphical improvement on Intel HD

According the resource monitor enabling this power mode caused the average maximum frequency percentage to rise to 76 from the "balanced" modes average of 43 when idle. Which, assuming means there be an estimated 33 percent increase on ones FX-6300.

Ok, so I did a quick test running TS3 clean game on Intel HD 4000 on max graphics and the improvement was amazing.

Below are two videos, one with all CPU unparked and one with the original default I recorded a while ago.

1) There is an actual FPS increase. I chose Sunset Valley gym to match the older video. From the old video, you can see the FPS on the top right. It averages around 10-11 FPS. In the new video, the FPS is much higher, average around 13-14 FPS. Roughly a 30-40% increase.

2) Now some would say a 3-4 FPS increase is negligible. But, look at how much smoother the overall game is. We unparked the CPU, not the GPU. The GPU FPS change is related to the CPU increase, but it is not directly what we modified. So the CPU itself is 35-40% faster, the sims are much more lively, more autonomous, less idling. Notice when I go to the swimming pool, he changed his clothing faster than the older video. I didn't even have to pause the game to get his clothing changed. Notice that even in the fastest game speed setting, the game is relatively smooth with almost no FPS loss.

3) The video is actually 2 parts. The 2nd part I took is at the beach. The FPS dif is much noticeably less in this one since the FPS was low to begin with, but you can still compare it yourself (FPS is listed on the top right corner), it is around 2-3 FPS difference. However, again, visually it is much more noticeable, the camera panning is smoother and faster, sims more lively and autonomously. But the most difference is the swimming in the surf. In the original, it actually could lag down to 3-4 FPs, but in the new version it remains more constant at 7-8 FPs. This is probably due to the effect of the surf is more than just GPU intensive, but CPU intensive as well.


OLD Video - With CPU parked



NEW Video - With CPU unparked



Conclusion:
To get TS3 running smoothly is a careful balance of CPU, GPU, RAM, and HDD. So ramming up the CPU itself may or may not increase the performance, it really depends on what is the factor that is slowing down your game. In the case of users with Intel HD, because it is a mid-lvl GPU and quite slow compare to a dedicated GPU, it means that the GPU is the slowing factor and the HDD is not being used to the full potential. Increasing the CPU efficiency helps with improving the integrated GPU, allowing more CPU/HDD to be used that were capped previously by the Intel HD. This is where the improvement is seen.

EDIT:
After further testing and also testing on TS2, it seems that since the Intel HD is integrated into the CPU, this method actually improves the Intel HD directly. I can be wrong since this is just speculative, but it does answer why there is a greater improvement with the Intel HD and why it was directly related to graphical improvement.

On TS3 even with a good Nvidia card, this method seems to have direct improvement on the AIs in the game. Much less idling, more active, etc... But graphically, it didn't make much significant difference, at least none that can be measured via the FPS.

Ok I gave this a quick test run last night. My power mode was already on 'high performance' so when I installed the app I had 3 out of 4 cores on the 100% setting, and one on 5%.
I changed the 5% one to 100%, which I'm assuming should have given me around a 22% increase in performance. Is that right?
I didn't notice any difference with my test. But maybe it was better, I can't say for sure.
Will keep testing. Thanks to the OP.

Hey thanks for reporting in. Keep an eye on your sims. From what I noticed is that it affects their idle time, etc.. less idling sims, they're more active. It may also help with the loading/saving time, I'm not sure. However, it doesn't affect the graphics except on Intel HD.

I tried that program earlier and it didn't seem to have a big impact on The Sims 3, but other games seem to be quite a bit smoother. Sims 2 did seem noticeably smoother too. Just a quick question, Is is safe to keep the unpark setting on 100%?

Hey, thanks for reporting in. Yeah, I'm pretty surprised too that it made more impact in Sims 2 than Sims 3. I think a big part of it is that Sims 2 has issues with multi-core/hyperthreading to begin with because it is a single core game and apparently the issue is with the parking. I originally couldn't play Sims 2 unless I disabled other cores, but after I removed the parking, now I can run it with all the cores on and it is smooth and amazing.

I'm not really sure whether it is ok to leave it unparked 100%. I've read some forums about it and just base on what I understand, here is what I know:

1) Not ALL cpus come with parking. This means there are multicore CPUs out there that doesn't park at all. Theoretically, parking is a relatively new thing that was implemented later on. So any older CPUs would not even have this capability.
2) Parking is for "saving energy," so theoretically it is much better for laptops especially if you are running on battery.
3) There have been mentioning that like all hardware, they have a lifespan and so the more you use it and push it, it shortens the lifespan. Now, there is merit to this in general hardware, but theoretically it doesn't seem to be relevant in this case. Why? Because even when it is unparked, it doesn't necessarily mean the CPU is being used. It may still be idling. Parking simply means it got "turned off," for the purpose of energy conservation. So it can be unparked and idling. This is also the reason why there is no temperature increase.

If we want to reduce CPU stress, it has to do with reducing the load and the frequency multiplier. This is why in the advanced power management, under "minimal processor state" I like to leave it at 5%. I know in "high performance," it is set to 100%, but I've always found that to be unnecessary. When I surf the web, I don't need my CPU at maximum frequency. It will automatically be at 100% when I run softwares that need it.

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So in conclusion:
I think if you are running a laptop, it would not be advised to leave it on 100% all the time because it uses more power, so probably bad for your battery.

All other else, I really don't know. I can't really think of a reason why it would be bad, but I'm pretty new to this too. I actually created a new power scheme just for this, so I just switch over when I need it and then switch back to normal when I'm done.

I think just to be safe I'll use one profile for gaming and another when I'm not gaming, just in case it does cause extra strain on the CPU.

And yeah I also had performance issues with Sims 2, and now they're basically gone. I still get a little lag on community lots when someone is walking onto the lot, but that has pretty much always happened for me no matter what computer I was using.

Hey I'm kind of curious, are you testing it with a dedicated card or Intel HD?

I have to say more and more testing of Intel HD with the CPU unparked is producing amazing results. There definitely is a tie in between the Intel HD and the CPU. Some games I can get 30 FPS out of Intel HD, I was able to get 60 FPS with unparked CPU, doubling the FPS.

I use a dedicated card. It isn't the greatest card out there (Radeon HD 6850) but it's good enough for me. Pretty much any problems I have in my games are either because my HDD can't keep up, or because I'm playing an older game that just runs poorly on modern hardware and/or Windows 7. Overall by unparking the CPU I am definitely getting smoother gameplay in most cases. I think in some cases Windows was trying to bottleneck my CPU so much that some games just weren't performing the way they should.

I wonder if my i5-2500 has this

it probably does, i3,5,7 are all new enough to have it. you can check via resource monitor

Ok, thanks

Info update:
Did more testing and here are a few more info for knowledge base.

1) In the source link, they benchmarked the differences using WINRAR. I tried duplicating this but was unable to because WinRAR actually uses all the cores to the max when it operates. So even with parking enabled, it will disable the parked cores and use them. WinZIP didn't show any differences either, but for the opposite reason. WinZIP really only uses 1 core, so even if other cores are unparked, the performance is the same.

2) Since unparking the core is to remove the latency between the parking/unparking and does not actually overclock or increase the CPU multiplier or load, this method works the best on programs that uses multiple cores and randomly. Also, it affects the overall system because the Win OS uses the multiple cores whenever they can even on programs that may not support it. Sims 2 and Sims 3 are good examples of this.

3) Sims 2 - Even though Sims 2 is a single core game, Win OS does take advantage of other cores when it can with Sims 2. One obvious usage is Win OS will use 1 core to run the sound and 1 other core to run the game. This can be confirmed easily in the resource monitor and also by starting the game in multiple cores and then disable it to a single core after the game is running, the music/sound will go crazy. The Win OS will also use multiple cores when it loads from the HDD during the loading screen and even during the game whenever new sims enter the lot or new animations need loading. Because Sims 2 is a single core game and its multiple core usage is directly related to Win OS, there is a lot of core sharing and thus why there are so much latency. I originally cannot play Sims 2 at all with multiple cores, had to disable all but 1. With parking disabled, this problem is solved and Sims 2 now runs normally on multiple cores.

4) Sims 3 - Sims 3 is already a dual core game. This means that it has its own threading, which I think the max is 3. This part of it will take place in active cores that it reserves for the game and is unaffected by any parked or unparked cores. However, like what I said above, Win OS also takes advantage of multiple cores when it can, mostly for HDD loading, but I'm sure also for other issues b/c in the resource monitor, all the cores are active. In the case of Sims 3, 50% of the cores will always be parked and the OS switches them between them to save power, reduce heating, etc.. When the cores are unparked, seems that more cores are active. The result is that efficiency improvement we expected. The reason it might appear not as much as Sims 2 is because Sims 2 is older, single core, and thus have problems new new technologies, Sims 3 is much more compatible with core parking to begin with. The difference is noticeable in the overall game play, less idling sims, more active world, etc...

5) Intel HD - Reading up more on Intel HD and concluded since the Intel HD GPU is built into the CPU, there are a lot going on in there such as power sharing throttling, resource sharing, etc... I guess that is why all the articles say that Intel HD's performance is highly dependent on the CPU it is built into. In the past I've always thought that was obvious, your CPU is better, it runs whatever program better so your Intel HD would be more efficient. However, that's not what they meant. They meant that the Intel HD itself is directly related to the CPU it is implemented into. So an Intel HD 4000 on an i7 will perform better than on an i5, the actual GPU will perform better because it relies on the resources of the CPU. For this reason, unparking the cores has a direct correlation to the performance of the Intel HD GPU. This is why by unparking the CPU for Intel HD users, they will see graphical improvements.

6) Summary: Unparking the CPU will have benefits only when multiple cores are being used randomly, where there are a lot of parking and unparking. This means either in softwares that utilizes this or a software in which your OS will be able to utilize this method. In situations where either it only uses 1 core or the software uses all cores equally, where there is no parking/unparking, there will be no difference whether parking is disabled or not. However, it will have definite advantages if you are multitasking. For example, if you are playing Sims 3 and surfing the web at the same time, your OS will be shuffling the core parking all the time. If parkig is disabled, there will be no latency and thus much more efficient.

Too bad, because I was really hoping it would reduce the time it takes to render videos in virtual dub. But virtual dub renders mostly in 1 core, though it does use multiple cores.

This is great news!

So I've just downloaded the tool and the drop-down menu option was already set to High performance. Is there anything I need to do now?

For reference, my CPU is an i5-3350P (3.1gHz quad core), my GPU is an MSI GTX 650 and my OS is Windows 8.0 64-bit.

With Sims 2, I have a i5-2500 and I can run it without disabling any of my cores just fine, that is a interesting issue you have

I'm actually using the register method, but from what I understand the app simply loads up the power plan you are using. So it is already set to 'high performance' because that is the one you are running from the power button.

Any changes you make will only be reflected in that power plan. It is up to you how you would like to do it. Some people like to run the app and change the parking when they need to, while others like to have a power plan dedicated to the change and so they just switch power plan when they need it.



So basically you want to set both the dc/ac parking to 100% to disable them. I wouldn't recommend touching the frequency scalers, that's not related, it is for overclocking I think.

You should try it with resouce monitor running so you can see immediately if it is working when the cpu are no longer parked.




Every CPU type is different and depending on the OS, it would also be different. Many people in the TS2 forum also didn't have this issue so they couldn't help me before when I had it. I read around the web for other forums and found people with similar problems who had to run TS2 with only a single core.

I'm running an 8-core i7 and I've never had any real issues with TS2, but I have had a lot of problems with TS3 lagging, even though my video card isn't showing a struggle and my RAM has plenty of free space left. I edited my registry as it instructed to do, but the option in my Power Options menu was already set to 100%, so I don't know if my system had this by default, if simply setting the option for it to appear changes it by default, but I'll test it out tomorrow and see if I notice a difference. Thanks for the helpful info!

Will there be any issues with overheating?

Trust me, you will.

Hi,

You can check the resource monitor to see if there are any parked cores. If the option is set to 100%, all the cores should be on all the time. Make sure you are looking at the correct option. It should be the one that says "Processor performance core parking...." and not "minimum processor state" or the "maximum processor state." I did read that some cpus don't have parking enabled at all, so perhaps you have one of them.

Btw, just curious what kind of lagging are you getting in TS3? There are only a few types of lags that would not show up on FPS check. Most common lagging is from routing problems, which cannot be solved. It can be lessen by playing fixed worlds or using NRAAS tools. However, there are also laggin' issues when the GPU is too fast and there is no FPS limiter. And finally, there could be issues simply when the CPU is too fast that the HDD can't keep up. These are the types of lagging that is like "pulse laggin'." It has minipulses, which is not picked up by the FPS, so you can be playing with 60 FPS but still get these lags.

Post in the Help forum if you need more help with this.




Theoretically it shouldn't, since it isn't considered overclocking. But I've read on some forums where some people said there was an increase in the heating. Every system is different, so I don't know. The article says it shouldn't and that systems that overheat had overheating issues regardless of this change.

I tried it out and it's fantastic! While it's not noticeable on Speed 1, when it's on Speed 3, the differences are massive. The game moves a lot faster. To describe it playfully, before I did this, sims on Speed 3 when eating were like, "Nom......Nom......Nom", but with this, they eat a heck of a lot faster. Now, it's more like "NOMNOMNOMNOM"

It has blown my mind the difference this makes. It is not as obvious if you just look at the FPS, but the AI is certainly improved. Sims no longer stand idle and more Sims are pushed to community lots. Also, as somebody else mentioned, the ultra-speed works waaay better without the usual hiccups I've grown accustomed to experience. I don't know who discovered this trick but that person needs to have a statue built in his honor . We must spread the word so more simmers can enjoy the definitive Sims game so far. If you combine this trick + Nraas Mods + World Fixes + Above Average Gaming PC = a great gaming experience.

Thanks for adding more information. It does make sense since in faster game modes, the world runs faster so requires more CPU resource. In such cases, reducing core parking latency definitely helps a lot.

It's no magic bullet, but it does make a difference. It no longer takes an hour for a Sim to change clothes, and Speed 3 is now actually usable. Nice find.