Intel releases updates for 'Foreshadow' CPU flaws

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Before Spectre/meltdown were published, but I think after they were discovered. So either they knew before the rest of us because that is their job to be well informed, or this is one of those ideas where it was just the right time for it to be discovered.



I interpreted what he said as "Don't bother tracking all the flaws, just patch as most users won't notice any difference."

Obviously there are some outliers like Cat with his sluggish Fallout game, and Linux developers whose compiles might go 20% slower, but I hear very few people complain that their PC has slowed from the fixes.

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Exactly. What almost everyone outside the security industry doesn't understand is that none of these processor flaws are easy to exploit. I've given up searching for exploits for any of these flaws using anything other than the proof of concept code as I haven't found any. 8 months later.

To provide context, typically exploits are written and are in active usage less than 4 hours after an MS patch Tuesday release.

I'm more worried about a meteor hitting my house in a direct hit than any of these flaws being exploited on my machine.

However, certain businesses absolutely need to be aware of the risks and mitigations. Like those that might be targets of nation state hackers for example.

The context of my response was the OP worrying about keeping track of all of these flaws and their possible fixes. There is no need for a home user to do that. Just cross your fingers you're not an edge case like CAT and that a windows update doesn't slow your game down. These are extremely low risk vulnerabilities for home users.

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Originally Posted by Ozaron

Well, you'd have far less "please Bethesda do something vaguely competent and make a game engine which isn't awful, or at least patch improve this one" social engineering work to do.

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:p

Well I am less and less likely to buy Fallout 76 the more I hear about it,so at least its a start!! Its a shame since the Fallout universe is probably my favourite gaming universe.

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Originally Posted by badass

Just cross your fingers you're not an edge case like CAT and that a windows update doesn't slow your game down.

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Well its more the case many reviewers seem to not understand the games they are benchmarking,ie,even with Fallout 4 many didn't seem to understand what areas need to be tested for CPU limitations,and one of them was user built settlements,ie,most of the benchmarks for the game were pointless especially since the game is capped at around 72FPS,since the physics go out of sync any higher than that,and review sites removed the cap. Its also the case with games testing with the patches - the only games which seem to have been affected by more than 5% are two openworld games. Even DF only saw that 10% decrease since they are more a gaming website who tests hardware,so have a bit of a clue where to test for CPU limited areas.

TBH,that could be an entire thread on its own regarding games testing,but I doubt much is going to change especially since companies seem to be giving less time for reviewers to actually test things now.

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Originally Posted by Ozaron

Strange how some people in the not so distant past crowed and rejoiced over the IPC and speed benefits transitioning from Ivy through to Kaby, then upon losing most of that clock for clock in security updates they "don't even notice", it's almost as if they couldn't tell the difference to start with.

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I think they generally couldn't see the gain either, but it amazes me how people see a 5% advantage on a benchmark graph and start using words like "destroyed" and "dominated". In a proper blind trial, they probably couldn't tell if they were using a particular CPU or the generation before it.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

I think they generally couldn't see the gain either, but it amazes me how people see a 5% advantage on a benchmark graph and start using words like "destroyed" and "dominated". In a proper blind trial, they probably couldn't tell if they were using a particular CPU or the generation before it.

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I find it weirder when they say the same of games where all the CPUs are pushing past 120FPS or all the CPUs are pushing between 70FPS to 100FPS,ie,120HZ won't be doable and then say "destroyed" or "dominated".

There are also other situations,where they misread the 720p graphs and don't seem to fathom the game is actually more GPU limited at 1080p and above.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

TBH,that could be an entire thread on its own regarding games testing,but I doubt much is going to change especially since companies seem to be giving less time for reviewers to actually test things now.

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Go for it :p Of course, the more open world/user moddable a game is, the harder it is to test.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Go for it :p Of course, the more open world/user moddable a game is, the harder it is to test.

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Maybe but it's still important to kind of investigate the games you are testing and usually you get an inkling from forums where people start to see issues in the game.

HardOCP were the only site to test settlements and did a 5 minute test run:
https://images.hardocp.com/images/ar...jlakgl_5_1.png

https://images.hardocp.com/images/ar...jlakgl_5_1.png

This is what put me off Ryzen MK1 and why I will never buy it.