what does HPET do

[j0j081]

I just found I accidentally had HPET set to 32 bit mode when it should be on 64 in my system bios. What exactly does the high precision event timer do? I've read it is a fairly new thing and should be enabled if you are running Vista but I haven't really found much else on it other than it possible effecting multimedia applications. Here is a link with more info but wasn't really much help to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Precision_Event_Timer

Would having it in the wrong mode change the performance of my pc at all? I have corrected it now. I saw the setting in there when I first built my pc but forgot to adjust it after switching to Vista 64 permanently a couple months ago.

 

[tcsenter]

It might be better to use 32-bit mode due to the potential for some software to have immature or buggy support for 64-bit mode timers. 32-bit and 64-bit software can use 32-bit timers without any new programming considerations.

As for the purpose or benefit of HPET:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/...nternals/mm-timer.mspx

 

[nineball9]

Interesting reading, tcsenter. Thanks for the link.

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
It might be better to use 32-bit mode due to the potential for some software to have immature or buggy support for 64-bit mode timers. 32-bit and 64-bit software can use 32-bit timers without any new programming considerations.

As for the purpose or benefit of HPET:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/...nternals/mm-timer.mspx

hmm so you think I should change it back? The Gigabyte manual says to set it to whatever flavor of Vista you have installed.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: j0j081
hmm so you think I should change it back? The Gigabyte manual says to set it to whatever flavor of Vista you have installed.

I personally would leave it to 32-bit, but if all applications and drivers that you install have proper support for 64-bit timers, then it won't be a problem. Its just one of those relatively new programming considerations after developers have been accustomed to 32-bit timers for years and years and years, not unlike making sure drivers are properly large address aware.

 

[gophins72]

i have vista 64, and i turned on the 64 bit feature of hpet after reading this post. so far, i see no difference.

 

[noho]

i know what it's for

its for media, not really for gaming or stuff of that nature.

i notice:
when i run it that my videos are running smoother and that there are some other programs like nvidias stuff loads quicker.
also in my gaming it slows down my load time, only with the online games that is =[
games only offline run alot better.

but if you looking for speed i recommend that you turn this feature off.

what i notice when the feature is off:
everything is alot snapier for load up =]

 

[tom.etc]

Apparently having that timer enabled threw off the timing for the on board NIC on my M3N78-VM, but only since i moderately overclocked my X2 4800 to 3.125GHz and Ram to 833. It was driving me up a wall b/c devman didn't throw out errors, the dialogue said all was well, but not single packet sent or recieved.. took me 6 hours to stumble across it just thought i'd share that so it's not you next time maybe

**edit** it's worth noting that in my BIOS its listed as the SouthBridge HPET Table