hardware optimisation for you and me

do i have to do something to make the game use more than one processor core, or is it not optimised for multiple CPU cores? the 'high end' recommended spec says 'recent quad core intel' ... why?
also, i was thinking, if i could get the hybrid drivers to work, i have a GT630 lying around - could i use that as a dedicated physx processor thus reducing CPU load.

my PC specs:
intel i5 2500k @ 3.3GHz stock
8GB corsair XMS3 1600
windforce HD7850 1GB OCd to 1GHz/1300MHz
win 7 pro 64bit
(almost meets the game's 'high end' spec)

playing in a window so i could keep an eye on MSI afterburner and task manager, all settings on max and all post effects on except dynamic reflections, i was getting a steady 60fps (with occasional drops to 30). it'd be great if it would run with all the shiny bits turned on (dynamic reflections kill it), but at the moment i think the single core usage is holding it back.
in afterburner, the CPU and GPU usage were around 50-60%. pressed J to pause the physics - GPU remained in that range, CPU usage dropped to ~30%.
task manager's performance tab with the graphs of each CPU core clearly showed the first core fluctuating between 50-95%, and the other three peaking at less than 25%.
temperatures were within normal limits (CPU ~70c GPU ~60c).

 

One core per vehicle I believe.

Also I think they are planning on some optimization fairly soon ish to make the GPU take some of the load from the CPU.

 

Each vehicle is run as a separate thread. Therefore the game can take advantage of multiple cores when multiple vehicles are in play, but when just playing with 1 vehicle it will not.

Taking a 630 as a dedicated physx processor will do nothing. PhysX is a physics engine by NVidia and not used in BeamNG. I think you are actually thinking of CUDA which is the General Purpose GPU processing technology built into NVidia GPUs and utilised by PhysX (where available as PhysX can also run purely on the CPU where an NVidia GPU is not available). This again, not so useful. BeamNG does not use CUDA or OpenCL. OpenCL (same thing as CUDA really but not NVidia Proprietary - both AMD and NVidia support it on their GPUs) is planned to be added to BeamNG already, it just isnt at this time.

 

after doing a bit of research, i could smash a dedicated physx card into my system and beamng would be improved by approximately zero percent, at best.
but i have other games that support physx, so it may happen at some point.
cheers