What Is Multithreaded Rendering in Video Games?

PC gaming
PC gaming

Many modern games, like Destiny 2 and Fortnite, are taking advantage of multithreaded rendering. This setting can be beneficial or detrimental for a game’s framerate, depending on what’s being played.

A basic summary of multithreaded rendering is that it splits the drawing work between multiple threads, hence its name. This helps improve a CPU’s performance if it has four or more cores.

If the CPU is weak, it can hinder performance, causing problems like hitching and low FPS. If you don’t see a multithreaded rendering option in your settings, it’s likely because your CPU doesn’t have enough cores to run the feature. You can check how many cores your CPU has through your system’s Task Manager in the Performance tab.

 

Multithreaded Rendering Explained

As mentioned above, multithreaded rendering separates the drawing work between multiple threads. This feature requires a multi-core CPU to function.

Rendering can be a difficult task for a system’s CPU to manage, and multithreading helps break up that workload. By default, a system will use single-threaded rendering, so this is a feature a user needs to turn on if they want to use it.

Separating the amount of work between many threads allows for an acceleration in the rendering process. How great the effect is depends on the number of cores a CPU has and its overall strength. If the proper specifications aren’t met, multithreaded rendering could backfire and hinder other functions.

 

Should Multithreaded Rendering Be On or Off?

The first thing to do when deciding whether to have multithreaded rendering set to on or off is to figure out if your system can enable the feature in the first place. If multithreaded rendering isn’t an option in your system’s settings, your CPU doesn’t have enough cores to manage it.

Multithreaded rendering requires a minimum of four or more cores to work properly. If you’re unsure how many cores your CPU has, you can easily check by following a few steps.

Open your computer’s Task Manager and click on “More Details”. Select the “Performance” tab, choose “CPU”, and you will be brought to a graph. Under the graph, you can see the number of cores your CPU contains.

If you have four or more cores, turning multithreaded rendering on will typically benefit your FPS while gaming. This feature is most useful in fast-moving games like first-person shooters and not something that has a slow pace.

Multithreaded rendering can also vary in usefulness throughout a game, depending on what you’re doing.

Say you’re standing in the Tower of Destiny 2, picking up bounties and new items. The FPS difference between multithreaded rendering being on and off would be negligible. However, if you are running through the neon-covered, wasteland-style nightmare that is Destiny 2’s Prophecy dungeon, turning multithreaded rendering on provides significant improvement. This is because the feature is designed for high-action and fast-paced gaming.

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