athlon 64: why is it's poor multitasking ignored/downplayed?

[augen]

I wonder if I could get some help with the topic of multitasking and just how it impacts system responsiveness. In planning my first build I'm considering the P4C and A64 to replace my old Dell (P3-450, 128M, Win98Se). Unlike most here, I don't game, nor do I do the heavy-duty professional stuff. Mostly I do lots of net browsing, some word processing, listening to music in the background, mucking around with the scanner/printer, and such. Down the road I want to get a digital camera and play a bit with still images (no video). Running a NAV scan on my current system is enough to make it unpleasant to use for much anything else until NAV is finished. I also have the usual compliment of prophylactic software running in the background in hopes of keeping my system safe from spyware, viruses, and the like, and will continue to do the same with my new computer once I get it built. Does it take serious gaming and/or "industrial strength" professional apps to stress a processor (say 3.0C or A64 3000+ w/at least 512M ram) so that it becomes laggy with other apps going in the background? Is a home-user who doesn't game going to see a real difference between a Northwood and A64 of similar speed ratings? I've noticed that the A64s (130nm) enjoy a nice price advantage lately, so am leaning in that direction for budget reasons.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

 

[Lithan]

"Running a NAV scan on my current system is enough to make it unpleasant to use for much anything else until NAV is finished."

That is unusual. NAV scan runs automatically once a day on my machine. I'll be in a game playing and I won't even notice it ran until I exit out. It was the same on AXP, A64, P4B and P4C. My guess is it's because your system is so dated. With any current system you shouldn't have that problem.

Based on what you expect to do with it, I'd recommend you buy whatever winds up to be more affordable, both A64 and P4 would work just fine for you.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: Lithan
"Running a NAV scan on my current system is enough to make it unpleasant to use for much anything else until NAV is finished."

No, it's not at all unusual. Running NAV is the best way to f*ck up any system. Worse for developer systems with lots of tiny files from stuff like cygwin and visual studio. The "daily" NAV and SMS scans on some of the systems here used to take more than a day to complete, and the system is pretty much 100% unusable while the scan is going on. Certain applications, especially sourcesafe and anything that uses VSS integration, are slowed down literally by 2-3 orders of magnitude (between 100x and 1000x) from the realtime-protection part of NAV even when a filesystem scan is not running.

Corporate Edition of NAV is far worse than the one bundled with PCs in my experience.



Another good example of Windows process switching gone horribly wrong:

Load any PDF using the plugin acrobat reader in firefox. Watch it take > 3 minutes. Then lower the priority of the firefox and acrobat processes in task manager and it takes only seconds.

 

[Lithan]

He didn't say anything about running visual sourcesafe. On a home desktop machine, NAV should only ever noticably lag hard disk access. It uses very little cpu and very little memory.

About acrobat... it takes 10-15seconds for me. I'll try lowering priority and see if it speeds up though.

edit: Tested @ default and with priority set lower on both. Instantanious in both instances. Only pause is waiting for pdf to download. This is win2k + mozilla + latest acrobat. Perhaps winXp just sucks for this stuff?

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Viditor

i would expect it (athlon64) to at least work as well as it does on the athlonxp, if not better, but it doesn't - that's what really has me scratching my head...

G'day Cainam...this may be completely left field, but I noticed you were working on SP2. Have you tried disabling DEP (this affects the A64 differently than the AXP because of the NX-bit)?

no, i haven't, but it exhibited the same behavior with sp1. all my pc's are currently running sp2.

i have tried different bios revisions, with no noticeable difference. i was hoping to have results of wether it was hardware related with the mainboard, but the idiots shipped my lanparty ut nf30250bg to friggin OHIO!!! (i live in wash).

due to the limited avail of this board (they're already OOS), i have to wait for fed-ex to reroute the package to xtremegear where it will be re-shipped to the proper address. they wouldn't even upgrade me to overnight shipping. i would simply cancel, but no one else has this board in stock either (newegg eta is 10/3) =/

Originally posted by: slatr
curious.. how much ram did you have in those machines?

768 in those, but now this was before TOA. I have to run 1 gig in my newest machine to run TOA clients.

ht certainly helps on the p4c, as it's noticeably smoother with no lag whatsoever, but i would expect it (athlon64) to at least work as well as it does on the athlonxp, if not better, but it doesn't - that's what really has me scratching my head.

This doesn't seem to me that it could be the processor either. Anything interesting being reported in your event log?

the ath64, p4c and athxp have 1gb ram. the p4b has 768mb.

i'm not sure why it "doesn't seem to be the processor", but no, there is not anamoluos in the event log.

Originally posted by: augen
I wonder if I could get some help with the topic of multitasking and just how it impacts system responsiveness. In planning my first build I'm considering the P4C and A64 to replace my old Dell (P3-450, 128M, Win98Se). Unlike most here, I don't game, nor do I do the heavy-duty professional stuff. Mostly I do lots of net browsing, some word processing, listening to music in the background, mucking around with the scanner/printer, and such. Down the road I want to get a digital camera and play a bit with still images (no video). Running a NAV scan on my current system is enough to make it unpleasant to use for much anything else until NAV is finished. I also have the usual compliment of prophylactic software running in the background in hopes of keeping my system safe from spyware, viruses, and the like, and will continue to do the same with my new computer once I get it built. Does it take serious gaming and/or "industrial strength" professional apps to stress a processor (say 3.0C or A64 3000+ w/at least 512M ram) so that it becomes laggy with other apps going in the background? Is a home-user who doesn't game going to see a real difference between a Northwood and A64 of similar speed ratings? I've noticed that the A64s (130nm) enjoy a nice price advantage lately, so am leaning in that direction for budget reasons.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

OMG! I actually agree with lithan here!

i don't think your usage will show any major advantage one way or the other. i'd simply get whatever you feel most comfortable getting, or whatever you can get the best bargain on. either platform should suit you just fine, but i'd have to say the way you use you pc, the ath64 platform would be slightly faster.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: Lithan
He didn't say anything about running visual sourcesafe. On a home desktop machine, NAV should only ever noticably lag hard disk access. It uses very little cpu and very little memory.

Check again. In particular, look at the VM size and CPU usage of the rtvscan process (this is Norton real-time protection). Hard disk access on a modern Windows system is also a lot more frequent than you think. Norton is a fat bloated pig. The scanning also interacts with the way Windows aggressive file-caching scheme works causing all your applications to be swapped out, and this swapping will slow things down even if your applications are not explicitly requesting access to any files.

 

[Lithan]

Norton Realtime virusscan is only used during high-risk situations (Only time I see it accessed are on emails, simply because I am far too lazy to turn the option off) on home pc's and can easily be turned off. Norton Autoprotect is always on. And Norton Full system scan runs either schedualed or when told to. Autoprotect uses about 5MB of memory and next to zero cpu. Realtime and full system work about the same (But realtime generally only runs for a few seconds at a time). Both consume about an average of 20% (And a very consistant 24MB of memory, Less of course for Realtime unless what it's scanning is very large -a situation I've never encountered-) on my system. Maxing around 45%. If another process requests preference, it gets it, so I have no slowdown problems. Viruscan might run a little slower, I never paid much attention. No bragging rights over how fast your system can viruscan itself.

 

[CaiNaM]

well, it's not the vnf3 mb... sad to say same results with dfi lanparty ut....

 

[glugglug]

I wonder.... does your Athlon64 system have the same Win32K.SYS file as your AthlonXP and P4 systems? It is conceivable that it might have a new HAL to support DEP. The alternate HAL could define whatever quanta sizes it wants. I don't have a 32-bit proc WinXP system to check.

Also, did you try the registry change? (Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl\Win32PrioritySeparation to 36 decimal or 0x24 hex)

My Athlon64 system multitasks a lot better than the P4 Williamette I use at work.

 

[CaiNaM]

well, this is the best explanation i've been offered:

The A64's pipeline stays relatively full most of the time. That's why it's fast.

The P4's long pipeline is VERY under-utilized. Hyperthreading helps to keep the pipeline fuller. Since it is 2 virtual processors, they can both do different tasks.

It's not that the A64 slows down, it is doing the same work, but splitting between 2 tasks. The P4 on the other hand, IS doing more work because it is able to fill it's pipeline when multitasking, but NOT when running one task.

The short, relatively full pipeline on the A64 means that even if it DID have hyperthreading, it would likely still slow down (by splitting tasks) when multitasking. That's because it would be doing (about) the same work, whether running one task or three. The P4 just can't keep its pipe full; hyperthreading is a technique to mitigate that.

It's a short explain, but I hope you get it.

it certainly makes sense... the a64 architecture doesn't handle the second app well, since it's shorter pipelines are already more efficient. adding a second app to an "already full pipeline" slows it down as it changes tasks when windows priorities instructs it to do so, rather then "filling up" the pipeline to process instructions for the other task simultaneously.

 

[KDKPSJ]

I actually want to hear something from A64 users based on "real-life" performance related to the topic.

I'm currently using P4 2.8C@3.05G. Reason why I upgraded from Barton to P4C was that, when I was using Barton, I could not do much other thing while I run encoding (mostly Virtual dub). Everything was slowing down, and even worse, if I make Virtual Dub the highest priority, everything freezes (even mouse cursor hardly move) until I change it back to lower priority or job done. Then I heard something about HT, and I decided to give a try even though I was AMDer for years. And a result was fantasitic, amazing, marvelous, and so on. I can even play 3D game, such as Warcraft 3, while running Virtual dub at highest priority. Virtual dub never slows down, and in fact, I can even run two tasks of Virtual dub at once, which helps me to save time a lot. (Yes, I do a lot of encoding)

Now, I am very interested in about A64's 64-bit processing ability. But what I concern is that I am not sure that A64 would handle such multitasking well. I know A64 would do absolutely better at single task, like playing 3D game alone. But what about such heavy multitasking I mentioned above, such as 2 Virtual dub tasks at once? I wish I can hear some experiences from those using A64 about heavy multitasking, especially doing something while video encoding, so I can decide if I should stuck with P4C or go for A64 with more future. Help me dudes!

 

[Markfw]

Well, I have done most of my encoding on my dual box as of late, but my Athlon64 3000 didn;t seem to have any problems multitasking either. I also have XP cpus (bartons and t-breds) and they are not in the same class. I don't do so much encoding that it riles my life, and other multitasking is fine. With the dually, I can run 2 F@H, one encode, play Far Cry and NO problem, but thats what it was meant for....

 

[CaiNaM]

it's pretty easy to duplicate.

download RthDribl (Real Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting demo).

open up internet explorer. mine defaults to msn homepage, and takes maybe 1 sec. to load. now close ie and run rthdribl. open up ie again; on mine it takes about 9-9 sec. to load and display the msn homepage - every time. this is on an

athlon 64 3000+ (newcastle CG rev)
dfi lanparty ut nf3-25gb
1gb kingston hyperX CL2.5
fresh install winxp sp2
nvidia chipset driver v5.10

the same sequence on a

p4c (northwood) 3.0
865PE Neo2-FIS2R
1GB Geil Value CL2.5

w/o rthdribl: 1 sec.
while running rthdribl: less than 2 sec.

making a 20mb zip file while running rthdribl, the p4 shows no framerate drop in rhtdribl (other than the normal 2-3 fps variance), the athlon drops from 70+fps down to 15-30fps, then back up to 70+ fps once winzip is done.

downloading a file using cftp pro @ 3.7mb/s, start rthdribl, and the d/l rate drops down to 1.7mb/s on the athlon 64. the p4? no change in d/l rate.

or even running 2 copies of rthdribl at the same time. on the a64, one client varies wildly from 27-45fps. the second one varies from 19-34fps. i gets worse running 3 instances.

do the same on the the p4c, and both clients run a pretty consistend 33-35fps.

here's what another athlon owner observed:

"Nope, im confirming your findings. It just took more items open to experience the same things for me.

the thing i found the most suprising as a confirm for you was when i had 3 RthDribl running and on the AMD64 box the windows of it would take turns cycling down to 4fps then back up to 18fps while all the p4 windows stayed constant at 18fps." note: for some reason he didn't experience the same behavior when running winzip w/ rhtbl.

again, it makes sense that the shorter athlon pipeline remains full, running the single instance faster, but not being able to handle the extra load, while the p4's longer pipelines can accept additional computational tasks as HT "fills" the unused portions of the pipeline to run the second task, essentially making it's pipelines as efficient as the a64 is when doing single tasks.

 

[AtaStrumf]

I have a A64 3200+ (754) currently running at 1,8 GHz (2800+) and a Radeon 9800Pro on an ABIT AV8 (VIA K8T800 Pro) and Win XP SP2 fresh install. I tried to replicate your results with RthDribl.

I am runnig two instancies of it, with Folding@home in the background and they both show relatively constant and equal 20-25 FPS on the first test and 25-30 fps on the second. These are not the min max values, just the most common FPSs I see. It does go higher and lower at times, but is not erratic. In this situation it taker cca 8 secs to open a new Internet Explorer window - Google Homepage.

Mind you I am runnig 13 applications at this time, among others 5 IEs and 3 Window explorers, 2 RthDribl, 1 Folding@Home, 1 notepad and ABIT uGURU EQ system monitoring software. Opening Windows task manager took some time the first itme but loads in about 2 secs now.

EDIT: With just one RthDribl runnig and everything else the same it takes cca. 3 secs for a new IE window to open. But I noticed something else is also find interesting. With only Folding@home runnig the PCU temp is stuck at 61C, but with RthDribl (1 or 2) runnig as well the temp drops to 57C. That indicates that the CPU is not being used as efficiently with two highly demanding apps running. Within 2 secs after I closed RthDribl, temps were back at 61C. Now that is interesting! Opening an new IE window only takes 1 sec now.

I'd realy like to see someone with a cca. 3,0 GHz P4 HT ON and OFF and a 3200+ AXP Barton, to try the same scenario and report back. We may acctually be on to something here.

p.s. I know my temp are insanely high and I am still trying to figure that out. I have a BOX cooler and it is quite warm to the touch at 1,8 GHz and HOT at the default 2,2 GHz. Any ideas why? Anybody knows how to disable No Execute

 

[glugglug]

That RthDribl demo multitasks really crappy with other programs on my A64 3500+.

Running it IE takes 3-4 seconds to pop up, but 13 seconds to load the MSN page, assuming I let it through the firewall (I normally block IE and use Firefox). Without it running, IE pops up in about 1s the MSN page takes about half a second to load, maybe less. (With RAID10, cached images load fast...)

Running 2 RthDribl at once is not so bad, however (as far as effect on each other). Each varies in the 13-20fps range, mostly hanging around 16fps. When one is loading environment or something for the next scene, the other goes up to 32fps. Does not matter if either one is in front.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

if you never actually DO 2 things at once, no you will not notice it. all depends on how you use your pc. not everyone just switches windows or only do 1 thing at a time.

 

[KDKPSJ]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

LOL Oh, please. Don't even think people are same. For you 4%, for me 95%, duh. How can you be so sure about how I use my computer? I do a lot of encoding for sure. I run it even now, most likely 24/7. I just have a lot of things to encode (because I am a Japanese anime and TV-show fan) every single day. And when I was using Barton, I couldn't even do my homework. So, most time, I had to let it do its job. But the problem was that I also had to do other jobs as well, such as making translated caption for those video files I encoded. No, I can't get secondary computer since I'm at school.

BTW, gaming was just a simple example of "CPU eating tough job." While encoding runs background, I watch video file and do word processing for making translation. And at the same time, I have at least 3 IE windows opened for information regarding the video I translate, Japanese-Korean dictionary, and a chat windows for my translation group chat. I run around all the windows using alt-tab all the time. That's like "minimum" thing I do at once.

So, don't you feel like yourself is ridiculous since you found out the world is different from you and bigger than you thought? Jeez..

 

[Lithan]

Originally posted by: everydae
I actually want to hear something from A64 users based on "real-life" performance related to the topic.

I'm currently using P4 2.8C@3.05G. Reason why I upgraded from Barton to P4C was that, when I was using Barton, I could not do much other thing while I run encoding (mostly Virtual dub). Everything was slowing down, and even worse, if I make Virtual Dub the highest priority, everything freezes (even mouse cursor hardly move) until I change it back to lower priority or job done. Then I heard something about HT, and I decided to give a try even though I was AMDer for years. And a result was fantasitic, amazing, marvelous, and so on. I can even play 3D game, such as Warcraft 3, while running Virtual dub at highest priority. Virtual dub never slows down, and in fact, I can even run two tasks of Virtual dub at once, which helps me to save time a lot. (Yes, I do a lot of encoding)

Now, I am very interested in about A64's 64-bit processing ability. But what I concern is that I am not sure that A64 would handle such multitasking well. I know A64 would do absolutely better at single task, like playing 3D game alone. But what about such heavy multitasking I mentioned above, such as 2 Virtual dub tasks at once? I wish I can hear some experiences from those using A64 about heavy multitasking, especially doing something while video encoding, so I can decide if I should stuck with P4C or go for A64 with more future. Help me dudes!

If you have a habit of setting programs that don't need to be run at real-time/vital priorities at them, and then gaming, don't switch.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: everydae

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

LOL Oh, please. Don't even think people are same. For you 4%, for me 95%, duh. How can you be so sure about how I use my computer? I do a lot of encoding for sure. I run it even now, most likely 24/7. I just have a lot of things to encode (because I am a Japanese anime and TV-show fan) every single day. And when I was using Barton, I couldn't even do my homework. So, most time, I had to let it do its job. But the problem was that I also had to do other jobs as well, such as making translated caption for those video files I encoded. No, I can't get secondary computer since I'm at school.

BTW, gaming was just a simple example of "CPU eating tough job." While encoding runs background, I watch video file and do word processing for making translation. And at the same time, I have at least 3 IE windows opened for information regarding the video I translate, Japanese-Korean dictionary, and a chat windows for my translation group chat. I run around all the windows using alt-tab all the time. That's like "minimum" thing I do at once.

So, don't you feel like yourself is ridiculous since you found out the world is different from you and bigger than you thought? Jeez..

Okay, how's this?

"P4 with hyperthreading technology......the choice of muliple account DAOC players and video pirates."

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: everydae

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

LOL Oh, please. Don't even think people are same. For you 4%, for me 95%, duh. How can you be so sure about how I use my computer? I do a lot of encoding for sure. I run it even now, most likely 24/7. I just have a lot of things to encode (because I am a Japanese anime and TV-show fan) every single day. And when I was using Barton, I couldn't even do my homework. So, most time, I had to let it do its job. But the problem was that I also had to do other jobs as well, such as making translated caption for those video files I encoded. No, I can't get secondary computer since I'm at school.

BTW, gaming was just a simple example of "CPU eating tough job." While encoding runs background, I watch video file and do word processing for making translation. And at the same time, I have at least 3 IE windows opened for information regarding the video I translate, Japanese-Korean dictionary, and a chat windows for my translation group chat. I run around all the windows using alt-tab all the time. That's like "minimum" thing I do at once.

So, don't you feel like yourself is ridiculous since you found out the world is different from you and bigger than you thought? Jeez..

Okay, how's this?

"P4 with hyperthreading technology......the choice of muliple account DAOC players and video pirates."

how about, "you're acting like an arse"..?

there's no need for that. you certainly have no grounds to slander him by calling him a "video pirate". fyi there is no copyright infrigement in duplicating overseas japanese broadcasts. it's unfortunate that in your attempt to look "smart", you only succeed in showing your ignorance.

now please either contribute to the thread, or refrain from posting. opinions are great; if not being able to do multiple tasks smoothly doesn't bother you, more power to you, but thread crapping and posting for no other reason than to attempt to insult others doesn't do anyone any good.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

if you never actually DO 2 things at once, no you will not notice it. all depends on how you use your pc. not everyone just switches windows or only do 1 thing at a time.

But what if you DO 2 things at once (like I do, and not just on my dually) and you don't notice a problem ? No, I can't give you any stats, since I am using, not benchmarking my system, but I DO encode and play games at the same time. Maybe because I use Windows 2000 ? Maybe XP stinks at multitasking ? Maybe I am only using DVDshrink ? I don;t know, and I don;t care, it just works for me....

my 2 cents IMHO, etc....

 

[Slaimus]

The main gains for HyperThreading when running 2 high usage threads at once is in context switching(stop 1 thread, saving its state, restore the state for another thread, and start that one). Despite the P6 improvements (like Fast Save and Restore), context switching is still a very expensive task as it needs to use timers and interrupts. The performance hit is especially high for a long pipeline like the P4's. With HT, a CPU has room to save the state for 2 threads on the CPU itself at the same time, which eliminates the need for context switching when 2 threads are running. The Athlon64 struggling is probably due to the fact that the Windows dispatcher is eating up a lot of CPU cycles doing constant context switching.
The benchmark speedup with HT enabled, however, is probably due more to allow 2 threads to use different parts of the CPU at once(like if thread 1 is waiting on a long FPU calculation to finish, thread 2 can use the ALU at the same time without waiting).

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

if you never actually DO 2 things at once, no you will not notice it. all depends on how you use your pc. not everyone just switches windows or only do 1 thing at a time.

But what if you DO 2 things at once (like I do, and not just on my dually) and you don't notice a problem ? No, I can't give you any stats, since I am using, not benchmarking my system, but I DO encode and play games at the same time. Maybe because I use Windows 2000 ? Maybe XP stinks at multitasking ? Maybe I am only using DVDshrink ? I don;t know, and I don;t care, it just works for me....

my 2 cents IMHO, etc....

well, i certainly don't fault you for being happy; i just wish i were

honestly, i'd prefer someone would say, "hey, here's what wrong and how to fix it.." as it certainly would be alot less hassle than putting an intel platform back in my main rig (and i could keep the areas of imporovement the a64 offers), but it's certainly looking as if the way i use my pc just doesn't cater to the strengths of the a64, which is also obviously not without it's weaknesses.

i guess my only real 'gripe' here is that this condition is rarely mentioned in reviews, many of which portray the a64 w/o any negatives. had i know this, i could have saved myself a lot of time and hassle by just going with another intel, but again, i'm not trying to take anything away from those users where this simply isn't an issue, and i'd certainly rather find a way to make this "livable" for me rather than having to install new hardware again... but registry entries, different mb & memory, adj. task priorites just hasn't improved the situation whatsoever.

there's obviously good reason a64 is moving to s939 and is making dual core processors avail. in the near future; that would eliminate the only weaknees i have experienced with this platform (i love nv's "any raid", allowing me to use either sata, ata raid, or a combination of both). if that were the case now, i'd be totally happy, as currently the performance in other areas leaves me with no complaints at all.

 

[KDKPSJ]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: everydae

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
LOL, even if you do a LOT of encoding, you still can't be doing it more than 4% of the time with your computer, so buying a more expensive and slower CPU so you can game while encoding sounds ridiculous.

LOL Oh, please. Don't even think people are same. For you 4%, for me 95%, duh. How can you be so sure about how I use my computer? I do a lot of encoding for sure. I run it even now, most likely 24/7. I just have a lot of things to encode (because I am a Japanese anime and TV-show fan) every single day. And when I was using Barton, I couldn't even do my homework. So, most time, I had to let it do its job. But the problem was that I also had to do other jobs as well, such as making translated caption for those video files I encoded. No, I can't get secondary computer since I'm at school.

BTW, gaming was just a simple example of "CPU eating tough job." While encoding runs background, I watch video file and do word processing for making translation. And at the same time, I have at least 3 IE windows opened for information regarding the video I translate, Japanese-Korean dictionary, and a chat windows for my translation group chat. I run around all the windows using alt-tab all the time. That's like "minimum" thing I do at once.

So, don't you feel like yourself is ridiculous since you found out the world is different from you and bigger than you thought? Jeez..

Okay, how's this?

"P4 with hyperthreading technology......the choice of muliple account DAOC players and video pirates."

Oh please.. wake up dude. There's the world outside your house. Get out from your home and see the world, bro. Why are you being so jurk? I didn't say anything bad to you, but first, you said what I did was ridiculous. You started everything, and now calling me video pirate. You know how smart you look like to the others, right?

Legal issue, there's no problem at all with the things I do because: 1. It's oversea broadcast, 2. I don't spread it in USA (I only spread in Korea, where it's totally legal to spread Japanese broadcast. Even selling them is *legal*), 3. I've never sold them for cash or for anything, and last, 4. You are just acting like an idiot. (BTW, what's multiple account DAOC players? Never heard what DAOC is)

Why don't you sit back, relax, and blame your stupidity? Jesus.