Why dual processors?

[Bazango]

I have spent a bit of time getting excited about the idea of running dual processors without once seriously thinking about what software actually uses dual processors. I suspect that Linux or Windows NT uses multiprocessing but I have yet to confirm this. Do the boards automatically break up tasks between the two processors? What software actually uses a dual processor setup?

[alan]

your right in saying nt supports dual processors i dont know about linux
but with nt the only time the second cpu jumps in is when the loading on the first goes above a certian percentage the second is only there to take the strain and bring the usage down mainly servers use duals or more for home use a good pii or piii will suffice
you would be better off spending your money on full scsi + writer bigger mon more ram ect...

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

The dual cpus are used in Windows Nt to improve the performance of the network due a huge traffic. A second cpu will only improve the performance of certain database programs and speed up the resources. If you are not going to use your server or workstation in a heavy network traffic, invest that money in more memory and a scsi hard drive. At the end , it will really improve performance and avoid bootlenecks. Please, check Microsoft Technical Support website for more info.

[Bazango]

Thanks for the prompt replies. Anyone else? I am especially interested in flight sims. If I see a piece of software that runs on Windows NT, might I assume that dual processors speed the software up?

[Tony M]

NT handles dual CPUs very well and it will speed up almost any app. Try opening your task manager and under the Performance tab, check the number of threads you have running. NT handles multi processing by distributing threads across the various CPUs. Now, even if a game is not threaded, you can still see some performance gain. While one CPU will be handling the game engine/thread, the other CPU can handle the OS threads, mouse, keyboard input, hardware drivers, etc. If a game does not use multiple threads then one, it should have been written beter http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif and two, you will see about a 5 to 15% performance gain.
To take the most advantage of Dual CPUs, you need a multi threaded application. A perfrectly writeen multithreaded app will see its performance double on dual CPUs. This of course is completely theoretical as perfrectly splitting the work load across several threads is difficult. With Windows2000 coming, you will start to see more and more games taking advantage of threading and dual CPUs.
Tony M
tony@sysopt.com

PS, yeh, Linux also take advantage of dual (and many more) CPUs

[Bazango]

Nuff said. Time to whip out my checkbook.

[CMonster]

Linux does have available support for multiple processors, at least dual anyway, and so does BeOS which does it automatically I am told...now if there were only a few decent apps for BeOS out there...

[Bazango]

About six years later, I am running something fairly like dual processors. My latest upgrade is to a motherboard that is hyperthreading capable and the 3.2 Ghz PIV running on it has got that feature. Very, very nice. It's been a long strange trip from 233Mhz to 3.2Ghz.

It's a lot of fun calling up my Task Manager and seeing those two little virtual processors running side by side. :cool:

No flight sims installed, alas. No HOTAS ... some day ... and a good steering wheel too.