PSVita: Graphene releases Thread Optimizer – a plugin and configuration app letting you modify game threads to use the 4th CPU core reserved for system processes!
A few days ago, Graphene released CoreUnlocker80000H which is a plugin allowing games to use the PSVita’s system-reserved 4th core but they had to be made aware of it first. Now, the second piece of the puzzle has landed with Thread Optimizer which is a plugin+config app combo allowing you to make games aware of the newly-unlocked processing power!
Graphene releases Thread Optimizer to compliment CoreUnlocker80000H
With Thread Optimizer, you can set game threads to use all 4 of the Vita’s cores which may alleviate performance issues in some games!
As stated in the introduction, Thread Optimizer is plugin and configuration application solution that is intended to be used with the recently-released CoreUnlocker80000H allowing one to make games and homebrew aware of the PSVita’s 4th CPU core which is reserved to system processes by default. This is achieved by allowing one to modify the CPU affinity mask (how many cores to use) and priority of threads by dumping snapshots through the plugin which could be edited using the configuration application.
Snapshots, which are stored in ‘ux0:/data/ThreadOptimizer/<title id>/config.dat’ after being captured by holding ‘L+R+SQUARE’, contain information about the threads that a game/homebrew uses with the three most important parts being:
- Identification Information
- Many games are multi-threaded so there has to be some way to distinguish the threads one is modifying
- CPU Thread Priority
- This determines the importance the scheduler gives a specific thread – Graphene suggests not to mess with it!
- CPU Affinity Mask
- This determines how many cores a thread is able to use which can range from 1 to 4 CPU cores
After capturing a snapshot, the configuration application can be used to modify the latter two parts with the changes being applied automatically as per the ‘config.dat’ file.
How do I use it? Is it possible to share snapshots?
Thread Optimizer lets you modify thread settings for commercial games and homebrew alike but messing with the parameters for each thread may not be the easiest and most entertaining thing to do so we’ll probably be seeing presets by community members!
As Thread Optimizer is dependent on other plugins, using it isn’t as simple as installing a VPK with the following steps having to be done in order for it to work:
- Install the CoreUnlocker80000H and ioPlus plugins
- They both go under the *KERNEL section in your taiHEN ‘config.txt’ file
- Download the Thread Optimizer user-mode plugin (suprx) & VPK file from the GitHub link below
- Install the user-mode plugin either under *ALL (works in all applications) or for the specific game/homebrew you want to use it with
- The plugin takes care of dumping snapshots by holding L+R+Square, deleting them by holding L+R+Triangle and loading modified snapshots
- The VPK file, which contains the configuration application, can be installed via VitaShell like all other VPK files
After following these steps, it is possible to modify thread settings directly on your PSVita and have them loaded automatically. However, picking the right threads to modify and choosing the correct options for best performance isn’t a task for the faint of heart and requires some research into what’s going on while a game is running and knowledge on threads but there’s hope for end-users who don’t like tinkering themselves.
This is because the snapshots used by Thread Optimizer can be shared with others as they contain no personal data so it’s likely we’ll be seeing some of these shared online in the near future!
Conclusion
With snapshots being shareable, it’ll only be a matter of time before snapshots for games most notorious for performance issues, such as Borderlands 2, will start popping up so stay tuned for those with the ‘vitahacks’ subreddit being an ideal place to check for new developments. If you downloaded Thread Optimizer in the last hours, it’s recommended you upgrade to the latest version (v1.4) as a couple of updates have been issued.
Thread Optimizer Team CBPS Forum Thread (usage information): https://forum.devchroma.nl/index.php/topic,210.0.html
Thread Optimizer GitHub Release Page (download link): https://github.com/GrapheneCt/ThreadOptimizer/releases
The post PSVita: Graphene releases Thread Optimizer – a plugin and configuration app letting you modify game threads to use the 4th CPU core reserved for system processes! appeared first on Wololo.net.