Utilizing 100% CPU on Dual Core

[xtal256]

Is it possible to run a program on a Dual Core (Intel) so that it can use 100% CPU usage. I am running a program which does a lot of computations and i want it to be able to utilise 100% of the CPU whereas currently it just uses a maximum of 50% (averaged across both CPUs). I assume it does that so that no one program hogs the CPU the therefore the OS will rarely hang. But i was wondering if there is any way to be able to change that? I can't imagine how that would be possible but i was just wondering.

[Democrab]

It would need to be a Multithreaded program, so unless its coded to use both cores, it can't.

[jelly]

What program are you running? Strange that they haven't updated it yet.

 

 

As long as you have threads there are always computations to dump on them..

[xtal256]

@Joe: Ah, i see. But surely instructions from a single thread can be spread across both cores. That's essentially what it's doing now, i can see it in Process Explorer (a Task Manager alternative), but it's limited to a 50% average.

 

@jallar: Holy crap, you have 8 CPUs!?

 

btw, the program i am running is Framsticks, an evolution/artificial life simulator. You set certain fitness parameters and it simulates primitive creatures living, breeding and mutating to see what they evolve into.

[Democrab]

@Joe: Ah, i see. But surely instructions from a single thread can be spread across both cores. That's essentially what it's doing now, i can see it in Process Explorer (a Task Manager alternative), but it's limited to a 50% average.

Because Windows ATTEMPTS to make programs natively multi-thread, they can only use 50% of your CPU but windows will spread that evenly across the CPU cores.

[jelly]

 

Definitely a serial application. Only way you'll run both your cores is if the developers thread the code. Interesting that with all these years of dual socket and dual core setups noone had that idea for such an, apparently, demanding application. Oh well.

 

And no, they're not 8 cores, they're 4 cores with hyper-threading.

[GTA_NYC]

 

Is it possible to run a program on a Dual Core (Intel) so that it can use 100% CPU usage

 

 

Play GTA IV on your PC, and i bet you your CPU will choke to death

[Wolf68k]

Download Prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/

Then read this http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/65100/ on how to run more than one instance of Prime95 which will use both cores, or however many you have.

In a nutshell how to run more than one instance:

After you get it installed, create a shortcut of the exe. Open the properties and had -A0 at the end, rename the shortcut to something like Prime95-1 or core1 or whatever works for you. Then make a second shortcut and add -A1 and rename that shortcut. Continue this for however many cores your CPU has.

Then run each from the shortcut.

 

Prime95 is great for OCers to see if their CPU and RAM OCing will work well with either other and general stress testing (for example to see what kind of temps you'll get from one CPU heatsink to another). Run it for 8 hours or really stress it for 24 hours and see how things do. After that time you get no errors, then you're good...even if you're not OCing at all.

Keep in mind while this is going on, don't even think trying to surf the web or chat or anything else. For one the other programs will be slow as hell running and for another it could possible throw off the results.

So disable your screen saver and energy management you have set and close out any unneeded programs (IM clients, web browsers and so on). Let them run while you go to sleep, school, work, sex with the girlfriend (oh wait that'll only take a minute ) or whatever else you can be doing. You can of course turn off the monitor(s) if you wish.

[xtal256]

Definitely a serial application. Only way you'll run both your cores is if the developers thread the code. Interesting that with all these years of dual socket and dual core setups no one had that idea for such an, apparently, demanding application. Oh well.

 

And no, they're not 8 cores, they're 4 cores with hyper-threading.

Well the application hasn't been updated in a while, version 2.11 was released on 25/05/2006. I did manage to find a 3.0beta on the website but unfortunately not much is new in it.

btw, i see that you are only running the simulation at normal speed ("Every"/667fps) instead of the maximum speed of "1:1000" or whatever it is. That would have no difference in how many cores it uses but it would use as much % CPU as possible.