Number of Helper Threads?

[Déjà Bru]

It's an option in Settings: Number of Helper Threads: Use Recommended (8), None, or 2, 4, 6, etc. up to 16.

Now, I can Google as well as the next man, and I came up with this discussion:

A thread is a single line of commands that are getting processed, each application has at least one thread, most have multiples. A core is the physical hardware that works on the thread. In general a processor can only work on one thread per core, CPUs with hyper threading can work on up to two threads per core.

For processors with hyper threading, there are extra registers and execution units in the core so it can store the state of two threads and work on them both, normally to change threads you have to empty the registers into the cache, write that back to the main memory, then load up the cache with the new values and load up the registers, context switches hurt performance significantly.

Core = hardware. Thread = how the hardware is supplied with information. Think of it as the 'road' by which the information gets into the CPU core.

Some processors, like the i7-2600K, have hyper-threading. This is where each core can take 2 threads. In layman's terms, although the CPU has 4 physical cores, it allows the CPU to act as if it had 8 cores. Generally only useful for high-intensity program that do modelling or video-editing work.

Most of which is Greek to me.

So my questions are more practical: Under what circumstances would I be concerned about this setting? What goal would I have in mind for changing it and what adjustment would I be making in order to attain that goal?

Yes, I know the obvious answer: "If you don't need to know what it is, consider yourself lucky and leave it alone." I'm just curious (but not enough to come anywhere near it with my mouse pointer ).

[Matt Arnold]

Mainly, you might want to use it to disable threading. That would be the primary reason.

Next, if you often run other stuff with OOTP, it might give you faster performance to use, say, 4 threads instead of 8 (if that was your default). There is a little extra overhead with running more threads, but if your computer isn't working on too much other stuff, it won't matter.

Finally, if you're a super tech wizard, you might try more than the defaults in hopes that that runs faster. Depending on your computer/league/setup, it might.

But yes, if the default is working for you, and you're not sure what you should use, don't touch it

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Mainly, you might want to use it to disable threading. That would be the primary reason.

Next, if you often run other stuff with OOTP, it might give you faster performance to use, say, 4 threads instead of 8 (if that was your default). There is a little extra overhead with running more threads, but if your computer isn't working on too much other stuff, it won't matter.

Finally, if you're a super tech wizard, you might try more than the defaults in hopes that that runs faster. Depending on your computer/league/setup, it might.

But yes, if the default is working for you, and you're not sure what you should use, don't touch it

Thanks, particularly for that last sentence!

[Kimchi]

Helper threads can best be simplified by thinking of your computer like a highway. When you begin to use OOTPB processor requests will start filling your data bus like cars on a highway. OOTPB can be intense at times on the processor because it uses a lot of numerical data. So lets say you give OOTPB four helper-threads. Think of that like four lanes available for traffic to flow. If you begin to notice on some of your leagues that things are bogging down you may be experiencing too much traffic. Expand your available lanes by increasing your helper-threads. This will give you the ability to handle more traffic. I run 12 helper-threads and never have any slow down. I also have 16GB of memory on my MacBook Pro and an i7 processor so I have the bandwidth to support the lanes. If you increase your helper-threads to much, beyond the capacity of your computer your machine will become unstable. Think of it this way, you can only extend your highway more lanes if you have room to lay down more asphalt. When you have more RAM and more processor you have more room to lay down lanes for traffic to flow. Less RAM and less processor and you are limited. You can't lay down an eight-lane highway on a bike path.

[OakDragon]

One more note: OOTP will not allow you to use assign more threads to OOTP than your CPU can handle, so the too-many-threads problem Kimchi mentions shouldn't happen. The main reason you'd want to change the setting is if you're getting crashes, threading may be involved, so turning it off and seeing if you still get crashes would help troubleshoot that. We're pretty sure we nipped all those issues in the bud in beta, though, so it shouldn't be necessary to change it.

[Kimchi]

Helper threads in this version are very stable. I've ran it up the max with youtube in the background and even Sketchit and Photoshop CS opened and its been smooth as silk.

[andyhdz]

Originally Posted by Kimchi

Helper threads in this version are very stable. I've ran it up the max with youtube in the background and even Sketchit and Photoshop CS opened and its been smooth as silk.

well that's definitely a ymmv depending on your computer hardware.

[Kimchi]

Originally Posted by andyhdz

well that's definitely a ymmv depending on your computer hardware.

Old thread but this is searched quite a bit and I wanted to give my system settings.

I am running a MacBookPro11,4 (2.5Ghz/16GB RAM) and MacOS Sierra.