Programs That Support Multi-Threading

DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
0
0
So far the list stands at:
3D studio Max
7zip
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premier Pro
Adobe After Effects
Lightwave
Windows Media 9 Encoder

thats all I have so far, anyone else?
 

IceBreakerG

Member
Apr 22, 2005
121
0
0
Running 2 seperate programs is enough to justify a dual core cpu. What if you wanted to encode a video and work on photoshop at the same time? Can't do that very efficiently with a single core cpu. Doesn't have to be any single application to justify dual core, just running multiple applications is enough. Every application is a seperate thread.
 

lansalot

Senior member
Jan 25, 2005
298
0
0
My PC is also a media server and records digital freeview TV. When that chimes in during gaming on single-core 939-3200 I don't notice. What I do notice however are all the dropped frames in the resultant video file. Just one of the many things dc will solve for me.
 

dawks

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,071
2
81
Firefox
Internet Explorer
MSN
Winamp
Explorer
Acrobat Reader
Newsleecher
WinDVD
PowerDVD
WMP10
iTunes
F@H
SETI
Most, if not all modern games are multithreaded..
 

bsobel

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Dec 9, 2001
13,346
0
0
Originally posted by: IceBreakerG
Running 2 seperate programs is enough to justify a dual core cpu. What if you wanted to encode a video and work on photoshop at the same time? Can't do that very efficiently with a single core cpu. Doesn't have to be any single application to justify dual core, just running multiple applications is enough. Every application is a seperate thread.

Exactly. This thread is rather pointless.

Bill
 

canadageek

Senior member
Dec 28, 2004
619
0
0
most games are NOT multithreaded. thats why most gamers are holding off the X2 until multithreaded games come
 

CTho9305

Elite Member
Jul 26, 2000
9,214
1
81
Originally posted by: bsobel
Originally posted by: IceBreakerG
Running 2 seperate programs is enough to justify a dual core cpu. What if you wanted to encode a video and work on photoshop at the same time? Can't do that very efficiently with a single core cpu. Doesn't have to be any single application to justify dual core, just running multiple applications is enough. Every application is a seperate thread.

Exactly. This thread is rather pointless.

Bill

Run the video encode at low priority... unless your photoshop filters take a long time to run, I wouldn't expect it to be unpleasant on a single CPU.
 

dawks

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,071
2
81
Originally posted by: canadageek
most games are NOT multithreaded. thats why most gamers are holding off the X2 until multithreaded games come

You might mean SMP capable. While it is true, most games are not SMP capable, they are nearly ALL multithreaded.. I know im splitting hairs here, but it is a fact.
 

n0cmonkey

Elite Member
Jun 10, 2001
42,936
1
0
Originally posted by: dawks
Originally posted by: canadageek
most games are NOT multithreaded. thats why most gamers are holding off the X2 until multithreaded games come

You might mean SMP capable. While it is true, most games are not SMP capable, they are nearly ALL multithreaded.. I know im splitting hairs here, but it is a fact.

I thought multithreaded applicaations were SMP capable since the threading on the OS level takes care of splitting up threads to each CPU...
 

Stan

Senior member
Jan 4, 2005
614
0
0
If your app has multiple threads, the operating system can effectively split that process to different CPU/Cores at its whim. Most games are still single threaded, and as such do not effectively support SMP. It is extremely hard to write multithreaded applications, especially when you start to work at the assembly/video level. It isn't hard in the sense that its calculus 3 hard, but rather just tons of checks need to be performed. You need to check mutexes before clearing buffers, etc et cetc. Its a mess.
 

Aenslead

Golden Member
Sep 9, 2001
1,256
0
0
Originally posted by: dawks
Firefox
Internet Explorer
MSN
Winamp
Explorer
Acrobat Reader
Newsleecher
WinDVD
PowerDVD
WMP10
iTunes
Most, if not all modern games are multithreaded..

Those programs are *HARDLY* stressful for the processor tu even justify a 2Ghz+ processor.

The only programs that REALLY DO JUSTIFY dual core, are simply the ones that use processor intensively (sp?), a.k.a. those that use more than 50% of your processor WHEN runing.

And no, HARDLY any game is multithreaded. One or two, and that's that.

 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
0
0
If your app has multiple threads, the operating system can effectively split that process to different CPU/Cores at its whim. Most games are still single threaded, and as such do not effectively support SMP. It is extremely hard to write multithreaded applications, especially when you start to work at the assembly/video level. It isn't hard in the sense that its calculus 3 hard, but rather just tons of checks need to be performed. You need to check mutexes before clearing buffers, etc et cetc. Its a mess.

Which is why games like Q3, UT2K3, etc took the easy way out and didn't try to split up the rendering into threads but did split off things like audio decoding and AI.

I have a dual machine right now, it's well worth it compared to a UP machine. Hell this box is only dual 1.2Ghz and it still feels comparable to my 3Ghz machine at work. I've been holding off on upgrading because dual Opterons are are so expensive, but once the dual core chips hit I'll probably be picking one up, once you have SMP you'll never want to go back.
 

CTho9305

Elite Member
Jul 26, 2000
9,214
1
81
Originally posted by: dawks
Firefox
Internet Explorer
MSN
Winamp
Explorer
Acrobat Reader
Newsleecher
WinDVD
PowerDVD
WMP10
iTunes
F@H
SETI
Most, if not all modern games are multithreaded..

Umm... gecko (the engine behind firefox) doesn't support multithreaded rendering... nothing performance-critical happens in other threads. You have one thread that does all the work, and the other threads just handle stuff like timers. Expect to be disappointed if you think pages will render faster with multiple cores.
 

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
0
0
Multicores are great for people that know how to work things on their computer.

For instance if your a musician and require near realtime performance from a full fledged PC operating system. Or you need to develop a computer system that needs to control equipment or do exactly timed measurements.

Multiple cpus allow you to do some special things, like set one cpu as a 'sheilded' cpu that is dedicated to running a certain task while the rest of the OS runs on the other cpus. This allows good response and performance from a system while allowing one or two proccesses potentionally sub-millisecond response times. (I can get sub-1msec response out of my system with special realtime preemptive kernel patches and 2496 audiphile audio card, but normal desktop response and performance is severely degraded)

Also software is much more flexible then hardware. Hardware can be made to do certain tasks quickly, but only those things. So you develop hardware that can run software quickly, and that's what multiple cpus are about.

For instance you have mpeg2 and mpeg4 encoding acceleration (and decoding) you can get from cards and such. But with software you can do special things like 2-pass encoding, encode quicktime, or theora ogg video, or whatever you want. To do the same thing with a pure hardware solution would be very expensive and only be usefull for certain applications.

Also cheap hardware can be nice and inexpensive, and stable, if you move hard-to-do calculations out of the hardware and into the software. Also other benifits are realised...

For instance that's what Intel mostly does with it's Centrino 'technology'. They move as much as possible out of hardware and place the load on the central powerfull cpu. Like Wireless stuff. This simplifies hardware, makes things cheaper for the end user, and increase battery performance.

So you have printers, ethernet connections, IDE controllers, software RAID setups and all that that takes a peice out of cpu time. They are nice, but when it takes 20% of the cpu just to run the computer it can begin to degrade end-user performance.

Then on top of that you have people that like to multitask. I'll have a browser open, be downloading something. I'd have tv being displayed on my monitor and on another X session I'd be playing some online FPS game it's irritating to have to switch back to close a browser window just because I accidently left it playing some crappy flash ads on the website I just visited.

Then you have the fact that your getting sophisticated libraries and support software that makes it easier for programmers to make multithreaded apps and the easiest way to get benifits from increased transistor density on chips is to add a second core.

So SMP's have all these sort of advantages over single cpu machines, however traditionally the cost of the motherboard, the extra cpu, the heat, and the extra large powersupply has made it pretty pointless for end users. But now with multi-core setups, it's going to be as cheap and as easy to get a single core cpu as a dual core cpu, so that's realy pretty cool and something to look forward to.