[Megathread] Victoria 3 AVX

[BeBeep]

Article on support page.

In short: AVX required, game will never run, request refund.

I can't post the link, just go to the support link from the left hand drop down menu at the top of the screen. It's the first highlighted topic.

 

[Torakka]

I really don't get the people defending PDX using AVX, most of you are saying that AVX is good for players cause it gives extra performance, however our old CPUs are able to run AAA games, and usually at a very good FPS. Thing is, even if we had low performance (which most of us wouldn't, most older Xeons that budget gamers use are on par with the majority of modern CPUs that people have right now) that would only result in the in-game time not running as fast, it certainly wouldn't make the game unplayable, and I really wonder just how many seconds it saves to run a year of gametime by using AVX.

Also if using AVX was really that worth it to lose out of the players that don't have it then more games would be doing so.

If you are right and utilising AVX offers no benefits, why do you think Paradox has decided to require AVX-capable CPU as the minimum requirement? Preventing some people from buying their product for no gain doesn't sound very likely, when some people are simultaneously accusing Paradox of "money-grapping" with DLC...

 

[Brumes Wolf]

Article on support page.

In short: AVX required, game will never run, request refund.

I can't post the link, just go to the support link from the left hand drop down menu at the top of the screen. It's the first highlighted topic.

Well, that puts all the speculation to bed (link to support article). Good find.

 

[BeBeep]

Well, that puts all the speculation to bed (link to support article). Good find.

Just to say a Steam user has said on the V3 Steam discussion page that support told them to use an avx emulator until they get a patch out for non-avx users. Which is very specific and also seems to be after the support article was last updated ~18 hours ago at time of this post.

Worth remembering that ck3 and hoi4 both had avx requirements added and then removed recently too.

This is the official line and until they address it (they didn't take the opportunity in the know issues article) it's gonna continue to be; they should point people toward that article or announce something as it's unfair to people who are holding out.

Personally I bought a retail key so I've got nothing else to do but keep wishing on a star.

 

[Knoll]

AVX is useful for running the same mathematical operations over vectors or matrices of values, like say for a completely unrelated example of solving supply-demand pricing on a bunch of different commodities in parallel. Or another completely unrelated example you had a bunch of “production values” that you needed to multiply by their respective local “throughput values” before doing a sum reduction. Or say you have a matrix of different products that different population groups need and you need to broadcast multiply that by a vector of prices before comparing them to how much money the “pop” has to spend.

 

[sefakas3]

Apparently, the mac version doesn't have an AVX requirement but it does require an i5-6500 which is about the same as a G4560. 4 cores, 4 threads at 3.2GHz while the Pentium has 2 cores, 4 threads at 3.5GHz and is also 2 years younger. Would the game run on my CPU and other equivalent ones? Probably. Can it? No, because it doesn't have AVX. It seems odd that PI has completely ignored the low end Pentiums and Celerons and continues to stand by that decision.

 

[Engram]

-- buy the latest hardware! Go and spend $2000 on a new PC that you don't really need - NOW!!!

AVX has been in mainstream proceccors for 11 years. Time to upgrade your toaster.

 

[Metz77]

What's more likely? AVX provides features that the devs needed to use for Vic3? Or Paradox has decided to just arbitrarily limit who can play their game via CPU requirements because they hate profits?

 

[elbeenjoyer]

Very disappointed, hope they fix it.

 

[sefakas3]

What's more likely? AVX provides features that the devs needed to use for Vic3? Or Paradox has decided to just arbitrarily limit who can play their game via CPU requirements because they hate profits?

None tbh, AVX isn't magic and was removed in most games it was used in.

 

[Metz77]

None tbh, AVX isn't magic and was removed in most games it was used in.

AVX is useful for running the same mathematical operations over vectors or matrices of values, like say for a completely unrelated example of solving supply-demand pricing on a bunch of different commodities in parallel. Or another completely unrelated example you had a bunch of “production values” that you needed to multiply by their respective local “throughput values” before doing a sum reduction. Or say you have a matrix of different products that different population groups need and you need to broadcast multiply that by a vector of prices before comparing them to how much money the “pop” has to spend.

And as far as I can tell AVX was never required in e.g. CK3, and the inclusion of the check for it there was an error. I can't speak to it for other non-Paradox games.

 

[sefakas3]

These operations still happen without AVX, just slower because AVX does them in parallel.
Important addition: As I previously mentioned, the mac version is AVX-free and simply requires a faster CPU.

 

[Metz77]

These operations still happen without AVX, just slower because AVX does them in parallel.

So you're positing that PDX does, in fact, hate profits and is excluding non-AVX processors for no real reason, not because they couldn't get the game to run smoothly without them because of how vast and resource-intensive this economic system is.

 

[sefakas3]

So you're positing that PDX does, in fact, hate profits and is excluding non-AVX processors for no real reason, not because they couldn't get the game to run smoothly without them because of how vast and resource-intensive this economic system is.

If we just look at the numbers, there are more profits to be had by making the game faster for older low-mid end CPUs through AVX than catering to modern low end CPUs that lack AVX. I believe this is unfair and there should be some kind of workaround for it.

 

[Metz77]

If we just look at the numbers, there are more profits to be had by making the game faster for older low-mid end CPUs through AVX than catering to modern low end CPUs that lack AVX. I believe this is unfair and there should be some kind of workaround for it.

But there's more profits to be made altogether by having a performance toggle for AVX, so if that's possible and they didn't launch with it then I assume they had some other reason, like limited time/resources. Perhaps they should have been more publicly up-front about it, but it's not like they didn't list it in the system requirements.

 

[sefakas3]

But there's more profits to be made altogether by having a performance toggle for AVX, so if that's possible and they didn't launch with it then I assume they had some other reason, like limited time/resources. Perhaps they should have been more publicly up-front about it, but it's not like they didn't list it in the system requirements.

Exactly! It certainly is possible, as I said the mac version is AVX-free but requires a faster CPU.

 

[permanently_afk]

Exactly! It certainly is possible, as I said the mac version is AVX-free but requires a faster CPU.

You remember the time when people complained that they couldn't play without a dedicated graphics card? I do. The argument are virtually the same.
Either they use AVX or make the minimum clock speed faster. Yes, you can emulate it. Which has its own suite of problems (e.g. you have additonal elements in the stack, it costs performance, etc)

Because AVX has been out for more than 10 years, making it mandatory is likely. I know of multiple other pieces of software which make it mandatory. Most graphics intensive games can easily move their performance requirements to the graphics card. There is a reason why CUDA uses the graphics card as a giant coprocessor. Which also is the reason why nVidia loudly proclaims that Moore's Law is dead and buried. If that was true, graphics cards would be the only way to increase performance reserves. I'd recommend neither believing them or Intel proclaiming the opposite.

 

[BeBeep]

I mean removing the requirement and letting people boot the game with terrible performance is still better than not being able to boot the game...

 

[BeBeep]

Not to burst your bubble, but they had that requirement because Paradox ports back engine features regularily. CK3 and HOI4 didn't launch with an AVX requirement, weren't built around it and weren't intended to necessitate AVX. Victoria 3 was.

Good luck, but I highly doubt they'll make the performance worse for what amounts to the absolute, by far, vast majority of the playerbase.

They wouldn't need to remove it entirely, why would they? Is that why people are so defensive cause they think they'll lose cycles? Ok that kinda makes sense to me now. That's not what needs to happen.

 

[Testeria]

What's more likely? AVX provides features that the devs needed to use for Vic3? Or Paradox has decided to just arbitrarily limit who can play their game via CPU requirements because they hate profits?

Most probably they just used a library that depends on AVX for some calculations.