CPUSetSetter fails to apply Hyper-Threading on custom affinity masks (P-cores + HT are not functioning)

[saulomiller]

Hi! I found a bug in CPUSetSetter regarding custom affinity masks. The software fails to utilize Hyper-Threading logical cores when I manually assign the P-cores.

cpu: i5 14600kf

gamer: cs2, bf6

Windows 11 Home
Versão 25H2
SO 26200.7171

P-core: masks on

Masks off

[SimonvBez]

Hmm, that does seem a little odd.
Can you upload your CPUSetSetter_config.json so I can guarantee it's not just an incorrect configuration? You can just drag-and-drop the file into the comment box. It's stored at %AppData%\CPU Set Setter\CPUSetSetter_config.json
I'm guessing you're using the latest version already, 2.1.0, can you verify this too?

Thanks, and I'll have a closer look

[saulomiller]

CPUSetSetter_config.json

[SimonvBez]

Alright, your config looks all good.
I have two suspicions as to what might be the cause. Either:

1. It's a bug in CPU Set Setter, and it's for some reason setting a different mask that the one you entered.
2. Windows/BF6 is for some reason deciding to not use the HT logical processors. After all, what CPU Set Setter does it request a mask to be used; it's up to Windows to actually make it work.

So I need a little bit more info again: When you use the same bf6 Mask in another program, like Cinebench, is it able to run on the HT logical processors? With Cinebench, make sure that in the Advanced configuration, it's using at least 12 threads. It should be 20 by default for your CPU. 12 or more is fine, less is not. Just leave it at 20 if it already is.

[saulomiller]

Masks off

P-core: masks

I've tried a few things already, such as disabling Game Mode and tweaking the power plan. The next step will be to either reset the BIOS or possibly reinstall Windows 11, as I upgraded from an i5-12400F to this i5-14600KF just a week ago

[SimonvBez]

Before any of that, can you try using an older version, v2.0.1?
I had to change the way CPU Sets are applied to make it work on Windows 10 too. It works great on my CPU, but with different hardware there's only so much testing I was able to do.

[saulomiller]

CPUSetSetter_config.json

I tested it with version 2.0.1, I tried using Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, and anyway I’m going to format Windows 11 to see if it fixes the problem.
v2.0.1

[saulomiller]

Reporting additional info to help improve the SW:
I formatted Windows 11 and reset my BIOS, but the same issues persisted. I experimented with enabling and disabling features like C-States, Intel VMX, Intel APO, and Game Mode, but without success.

However, I found a solution that works for me:

1. I ran the following commands to reveal the hidden menus in Advanced Power Options:

powercfg -attributes SUB_PROCESSOR 93b8b6dc-0698-4d1c-9ee4-0644e900c85d -ATTRIB_HIDE
powercfg -attributes SUB_PROCESSOR bae08b81-2d5e-4688-ad6a-13243356654b -ATTRIB_HIDE

2. This enabled the "Heterogeneous thread scheduling policy" and "Heterogeneous short running thread scheduling policy" options. I configured both to "Performant Processors".

3. Finally, I used the tasklist command in CMD to analyze which processes could be moved to the E-cores, and then used CPU Set Setter to assign those background tasks to the E-cores.

mask p-core on Cinebench

no mask Cinebench