Fix: Tomb Raider 2013 on multiple CPU systems

Tomb Raider 2013 was released this week with much critical applause, and since then a couple of our readers have been emailing us to say that they haven't been able to get the game to run at all.

After troubleshooting the issues, we found the concerns were actually because both people have multiple CPU Xeon systems. One guy in particular, Paul Rutherford said he had experienced the ‘no load' issue before with a couple of other games, although he was running Crysis 3 fine, without a hiccup. All on Windows 7.

I spoke with Allan, otherwise known to you guys as Zardon – our hardware expert. He said he would look into it and solved the problem pretty quickly. Obviously Xeon systems are not really a first priority for game developers, as often a game will use only 1 or 2 cores, or if they are well coded, perhaps 4. Throwing two Xeon processors and 16+ cores into the mix can sometimes be a recipe for disaster.

Zardon offered a solution which he tested on a dual Xeon 2687W system he has. He said the problem doesn't always occur on dual CPU systems with these games, but if it does, this is the easiest way to fix it.

Basically what we are doing, is forcing the Tomb Raider 2013 game (or any other game giving problems) to use only one CPU and/or a certain amount of cores.

Firstly you need to download a copy of SMP Seesaw Pro. You can grab this here. (get the Pro version) – it is free. Mike Lin's program has been doing the rounds for years, and it is still invaluable for many people. I can't say I have ever used it myself, but I know a wide audience have to isolate problems, or to force a program to use a specific number of cores or processors.

Firstly, load SMP SeeSaw Pro then try and run Tomb Raider 2013, and the application should appear in SMP Seesaw Pro. If you have already been troubleshooting the problem, then the TombRaider.exe will have been appearing in the processes tab of the standard Windows taskmanager (even though it isn't opening).

Right click on TombRaider.exe and select ‘move to CPU(s)…'

The next thing you want to do is to isolate the game to some of the cores. We didn't see any benefit from more than 3 cores, so the first 3 or 4 is a safe bet.

You should now see that TombRaider.exe is isolated to the specific number of cores that you set up in the last window.

The two people who have had this problem have verified the game is now working for them and they are happily gaming away on their multiple XEON CPU Systems. One of them even has a GTX Titan, which makes me very jealous.

Lara Croft would be happy.

Become a Patron!