Affinity: boost system performance by setting processes to run on different CPU cores

Affinity: boost system performance by setting processes to run on different CPU cores

There are several methods to doing this, but this tutorial is about the easiest method that I have found (so far) to run almost ANY process or system service on different CPU cores.

You will need Processwatchv3 beta if you are using windows vista or Processwatchv2 if you are using windows XP, 2000, or 20003, you can get it at http://www.smartconsultant.de/

Download this:
http://smartconsultant.de/~exbeginner/ProcessWatchV2Setup.exe

Run the installer and install it.

IF you are running vista then you will also need to download this in addition to the installer above:

http://smartconsultant.de/~exbeginner/beta/ProcessWatchV3beta.zip

Overwrite the files in the install directory from the previous step with these files, this should turn your processwatchv2 install into processwatchv3 beta.




Running and using Processwatch:

Click on the monitor tab, click the magnifying glass icon next to the empty text box and browse for the process that you would like to change the affinity for.

Click the green + symbol to the right of the looking glass.

You should now see your process appear in the drop down menu below, simply double click it.

You can now set the cpu affinity, you can have it running on any core you like, and the program will be forced to run on that core as long as process watch is run!

Simply create a shortcut to processwatch and add it to the "startup" folder in your programs menu and it will always start with windows!


I have all operating system related services running on core #2 (CPU 3 of 4) and all background services unrelated to the operating system (such as antivirus and instant messaging) on core #3 (CPU 4 of 4). I run all games on Cores #0 and #1!

This should help boost performance

Have you (or anyone else) actually tested this first hand? I'm curious if there is any real performance bonus when doing this.

mbigna said:

Have you (or anyone else) actually tested this first hand? I'm curious if there is any real performance bonus when doing this.

Click to expand...

As long as the process is not multi-threaded, you should see a performance increase. It won't be much, but it should be there.

Basically Windows will (if non-threaded app using 1 core) spread out the load. If you had two processor and 1 app, it would do "50%" on each core. It switches the program between the two cores. There is an overhead to moving it between processors, so, if you remove that overhead, performance should theoretically increase.

Also mildy useful for bumping a process off a core that's needed for something else (ie Supreme Commander's main thread always takes up residence on Core 1, so bumping other stuff off of Core 1 can improve performance)