Shadowcity2

Meltdown has one variant. Spectre has two variants.

1 + 2 = 3

The claim that AMD is IMMUNE to Meltdown is false because it is premature;

Out of the 5+ tech forums I browse, you're actually the only one to think this. You accuse others of advertising AMD, but now I find it difficult to believe you're not being paid by Intel. If you think there are more than three variants, please do list them. Once again maybe there are six variants or even more but we are only aware of three so we'll just have to accept it and move on. All shall be revealed soon enough anyway.

Assuming the same architecture and clock speed, more cores are better. 6 Coffeelake cores > 4 Coffeelake cores. Really not that hard. That article is from 2015 and for mobile devices, we're in 2018 and on x86 hardware so it's completely irrelevant. Some people use their computer for more than games, stuff that can scale to 32 threads and even more.

We are indeed in the multithreaded era, here is an example of Crysis 3, a 2013 game.



i7 8700k: 6/12
i5 8600k: 6/6
i7 7700k: 4/8
i5 7600k: 4/4

Source: @ 12:50

The quad core i5 still delivers a decent experience, but it doesn't change the fact that practically every AAA game you buy today uses at least 6 threads. I know from personal experience every Assassin's Creed game since ACU uses at least 8 threads.

@Rezi

I don't know where you get your information from but if you do some research there are indeed three exploits/bugs/design flaws/whatever you want to call them. Here is a post straight from Google:

So far, there are three known variants of the issue:

Variant 1: bounds check bypass (CVE-2017-5753)
Variant 2: branch target injection (CVE-2017-5715)
Variant 3: rogue data cache load (CVE-2017-5754)

Spectre (variants 1 and 2)
Meltdown (variant 3)

Source: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/reading-privileged-memory-with-side.html

AMD didn't lie, please feel free to prove they did. Actually, maybe they did lie but it hasn't been proved yet. Since we don't have anyone that can prove they lied as of today, I think we can rest assured they're fine. Here is what AMD thinks about this whole thing:



Source: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution

So please tell me why I should believe you when AMD themselves think their hardware is in a better state than Intel's.

Now before you call me an AMD shill, I've bought more Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs than AMD/ATI CPUs/GPUs. I really don't care which company I buy from, the only thing I care about is how good the product is and how much it costs.

16 cores and 32 threads for $1000 USD? That sounds like magic to me.

Also for the love of god please do some research before talking about PC hardware, this isn't the first time.

TL;DR: Old CPUs suck, have at least 4 threads, buy a modern Intel CPU and overclock it, look up Cinebench R15 single threaded benchmarks.

Disclaimer: I do not have a master degree in CPU engineering, software engineering etc.

Over the years, Vindictus has steadily gotten more demanding as more effects get added, resulting in crippling performance on older computers, even on minimum settings. The game indeed ran perfectly fine on older hardware such as Core 2 Duos, but that was when Season 1/2 was the latest content. Unfortunately, for gamers with older computers, Vindictus is an evolving game and as it ages, it demands more resources. Somehow, this has lead to the belief that GHz means everything and the fewer the threads the CPU has, the better the game runs. This might have evolved from the generally agreed theory that the game is heavily single-threaded dependent.

Another theory I hear get thrown around is AMD sucks, even Ryzen. Yes, they do suck at getting 500 FPS in CS:GO, but for the most part they are plenty good.

But no worries, because today is the day we hopefully clear everything up!

Note: Only relative performance should be considered.

We will focus on five CPUs: E7500, Q6600, i7 2600, i7 2600 (1C/2T) and i5 6600.

Compared to the Q6600, the E7500 has faster single threaded performance, but due to half as many cores, it has relatively low multithreaded performance. We can gauge their rough performance with Cinebench R15 (free download if you want to compare your CPU).



So theoretically, if Vindictus is purely single threaded the E7500 should be significantly faster, however, it turns out the Q6600 actually pushes more FPS than the E7500 95% of the time. We can also see the E7500 is mostly maxed, almost always hovering around the 95% usage range while the Q6600 hovers around 60%. This enforces the theory of Vindictus utilising more than one thread.


7 FPS vs 10 FPS

Yes, performance is terrible on both CPUs, but we are testing relative performance.

Anyway, if the game indeed uses more than 2 threads, why is the i7 2600 (1C/2T) so much better than the quad-threaded Q6600? After all, the Cinebench R15 score of this CPU is only 133/170 compared to the Q6600's 64/244. A possible theory is the main game engine can only run on one thread, but other parts of the game can run on a separate thread. Let's use the audio engine as an example. In the case of the Q6600, the main game gets bottlenecked on its low performance core, while the audio engine can spill over to the other cores. In the case of the i7 2600, its significantly faster core can tackle the main game engine better and the less demanding audio engine spills over to the second hyper-threaded core. Now that the main game engine can run at full speed, overall FPS increases.

As we can see, the idea of Vindictus utilizing more than one thread is enforced by the comparison of the i7 2600 (1C/2T) and the full fat i7 2600.


24 FPS vs 38 FPS

The i5 6600 is the clear winner out of all the CPUs. Multithreading performance is equal to the i7 2600, but it screams ahead in the Cinebench R15 single threaded benchmark and real world Vindictus performance.


38 FPS vs 50 FPS

From the testing, it is fairly conclusive Vindictus values single threaded performance the most, but that does not mean a single threaded or even dual threaded CPU is enough to not take a performance hit assuming unlimited GPU performance and RAM bandwidth. The hard thread limit is probably around 4 but until it has been confirmed, we can only guess. For posterity, look up Cinebench R15 benchmarks or any single threaded benchmark as they seem to offer a good indication of Vindictus performance. Please note RAM bandwidth can influence benchmark scores, and it is unknown how important RAM bandwidth is for Vindictus.

Full benchmark video:



TL;DR: Old CPUs suck, have at least 4 threads, buy a modern Intel CPU and overclock it, look up Cinebench R15 single threaded benchmarks.

Vindictus is known for its soul-crushing RNG and will most likely remain so until it closes down. The developers know exactly what they are doing and who their target audience is, otherwise they would have revamped the gear destruction part of enchanting/enhancing system years ago. Now, I have nothing against BDO, BnS, Tera, or whatever MMORPG people are playing these days, but Vindictus has its niche and it remains online because a lot of people enjoy the game.

Some people appreciate the challenge Vindictus offers. "Gold Ein Lacher is too hard", "Getting orange grade materials is too hard", "Getting a purple level 90 weapon is too hard".

Getting 70 gold medals in Ein Lacher is too hard? No worries, aim for silver until you get better.

Orange grade materials are too rare/expensive? Orange grade materials are the best, you're not supposed to get it overnight and it's not like the game is unplayable without them.

Getting basic gear is too hard? Uninstall because Vindictus is clearly not for you.

Asians like RNG and are more willing to spend money on games while the Westerners are the opposite. I'm not talking about one-off purchases such as buying a copy of GTA5 at your local game store, I'm talking about cosmetics and gear. South Korea has a population of 50 million, while USA has a population of 300 million. We all know which Vindictus server is more populated and where Nexon makes the most money. Part of the reason why NA has so few Vindictus players is because of NexonNA, but that discussion is for another day. I don't know about everyone's experience, but my Asian friends almost prefer to gamble for virtual clothes than purchasing physical clothes, food, tech or something that is tangible. Well over half of my Asian friends that regularly play Vindictus have spent over $1000, a few have spent over $10000. On the other hand, all my Caucasian/Black friends spend very judiciously or only buy items that don't involve gachapons such as hair. If Nexon was losing enough players to be of a concern, they would have given players what they wanted (debatable). Vote with your wallet, but as far as Nexon can tell, their Vindictus players want more gachapons as the recently released Regina Outfitter was gachapon only.

Regarding level 95 gear and their stats, I don't understand why people complain.

Level 95 gear gives the same stats as level 90 gear? "GG dead content on arrival". Basically Abomination gear.

Level 95 gear gives slightly more stats than level 90 gear? "GG making people upgrade".

Level 95 gear gives too much stats? "GG 2 minute raids, WTF Devcat".

So at the end of the day, ask yourself, "Is Vindictus giving you hell?"

If it isn't, keep enjoying the game.

If it is, play a different game. Stop trying to change the core elements of Vindictus, play it for what it is and enjoy what it offers. Just because you hate a certain aspect of the game doesn't mean everyone else does (there are exceptions). After all, nobody is forcing you to play Vindictus.