Permanent proccesor affinity settings?

After upgrading to a dual-core CPU some of my games and programs simply do not run properly. This can usually be fixed by opening Task Manger while the program is running, right clicking on the program's proccess, picking "Set Affinity" and setting it to use only one core. However, there are two problems with this method. First, the program has to actually run long enough that I can get into Task Manager and set it to use one core. Second, this has to be done every time I start the application.

Is there some way to set Windows to automaticly restrict specific programs to use only one core? Some sort of list that permanently sets Proccesor Affinity? I'm having these issues under XP SP2 and 2K SP4, if anyone could please let me know what to do on these OSes.

Applied Visual Technologies has a free utility called xcpu that gives you the ability to launch a program and set affinity from the command line. You can get it here...

http://www.appliedvisual.com/xcpu.htm

The following command line should get the effect that you desire...

xcpu.exe -a 0 -p 2 -c <path to exe>

In the command line above the -a switch sets affinity to CPU0, the -p switch sets priority to Normal and the -c switch identifies the command line you want xcpu to execute.

Ok, that seems to work. Thanks.

Erm, while this works nicely on most games, some online games think I have a diffrent version of the game since the .exe is changed. Are there any other options out there?

Give this a try :

its freeware and it uses the process name to assign the affinity and not the absolute path.
That should help.


http://www.smartconsultant.de/pw/help/index.htm

Cheers

I'll give it a shot and see if that'll fix these games. It looks like this is only for XP, is it possible it will work for 2000 as well?

BTW, the URL http://www.smartconsultant.de/ has a default page assigned to it. You probably knew that though.

The default page is http://www.smartconsultant.de/forum

The default page is disabled on purpose.

Thanks for trying .. and please post back your findings ... a new release will be out later on today ;-) So you might want to wait a few more hours ?

Cheers

When I had a server app go crazy because it could only work properly with a single processor, I used the imagecfg utility found in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit to set the program to run on a single processor.

You can also check out HERE for instructions on the program and a link to imagecfg.exe on the M$ website. Let us know if you need anything else.

processwatch is a fantastic program! it dosent seem to work on windows vista though

ProcessWatch was not build for Vista ...

However you can get it to work by starting it with Administrator privileges.
This is required as PW actually manages processes, services and power schemas ...

Right mouse click on ProcessWatch.exe | Properties | Advanced --> Check "Run as Administrator"

You may want post your questions in the forum there ?
-------------------------------------------------------
PS.: I run the quad-core beta version + Vista 32 bit with no issues ...
Cheers,

I didnt know there was a beta processwatch . I know its not built for vista and i've been running it in administrator mode but it still says "you must select at least one cpu!" if I try to run any program on any core other than core 0....

I am hesitant to sign up on other forums, go through all the email registration and stuff ;F

I use the THG task assignment manager http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/05/28/getting_more_bang_out_of_your_dual_processing_buck/

This works pretty well for me. The only drawback is it doesn't have a minimize button. It'll always be on your desktop while it's running, though you can click the tray button to make it minimize to tray.