Can Windows 10 force the use of multiple CPU cores?

My understanding is that with Windows 10 (and even 8.1), programs dont need to be explicitly written to thread multiple cores, Windows can assign multiple cores to process information on a single threaded application. Is that a correct statement? I opened Task Manager while Planetside 2 is running, which is apparently only a single threaded app, and all four cores were being used (to the max actually). This implies that Windows will force programs to use multiple cores. I thought this was a feature dating all the way back to Windows XP.

Windows will load balance, not make a single threaded program multi threaded.

Then why is it a single threaded program will max out four cores? for exmaple, Planetside 2. Only single threaded, but will crank all four cores to 100% usage in game. Same with every other game.

Link to where you found Planetside 2 is single threaded? I've found otherwise, as most modern games are multi threaded.

Yeah. Something that is actually single threaded will max out at 50% on a dual core, 25% on a quad, but will be spread evenly across all available CPUs / cores.

If it can utilize more than one core's worth of the power, it's a multi-threaded application. Designed for multiple cores or processors.

It's always bugged me why the load can be split between core's but can't use all of them 100%

But wha SPL says is that all cores are@100%, not 25...

I don't care to dig deeper... because it shows the symptoms of a multi-threaded app, but I did find this:
And that makes it look pretty likely that the game is indeed multi-threaded since it utilizes more than one core's worth of processing power.

ATMINSIDE said:

Link to where you found Planetside 2 is single threaded? I've found otherwise, as most modern games are multi threaded.

Click to expand...

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...fps-with-an-overclocked-gtx970-really.242236/

Everyone on the game's forum seems to state it is single threaded. Is there a way to tell in task manager if more than one thread is running? If the game is multithreaded, will it open more than one process to run the threads, or is it still just one process for all threads?

SPL Tech said:

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...fps-with-an-overclocked-gtx970-really.242236/

Everyone on the game's forum seems to state it is single threaded. Is there a way to tell in task manager if more than one thread is running? If the game is multithreaded, will it open more than one process to run the threads, or is it still just one process for all threads?

Click to expand...

All development and notes I can find seem to say the game will utilize up to 32 threads.
They did this because the game was being ported to PS4.

jaymz9350 said:

It's always bugged me why the load can be split between core's but can't use all of them 100%

Click to expand...

A thread and a core are two different things for starters.

Single core can run lots of threads simultaneously. Background threads used by the operating system actually make use of all available threads on all available cores.

Software is written to utilize an entire core (or cores). The Operating system directs thread traffic and communicates to the cpu where to put the game main thread traffic. The processor is built to be able to split the work load. A lot of that comes with the instruction sets, and also hardware layout such as shared cache, memory communication and so forth.

There was once a time, your single core system was handling it all.

So then my question would be....

Why not just have a giant single core vs a lot of smaller cores??

ShrimpBrime said:

So then my question would be....

Why not just have a giant single core vs a lot of smaller cores??

Click to expand...

Because Intel cannot produce a chip that can handle 16 GHz. without costing an insane amount of money. We're already stuck at clock speeds at it is. We should be making chips that are clocked at over 5 GHz. stock now, but we are not. For the last few years the clock speed of Intel chips have not increased at all. This seems to imply we're at a roof that Intel cant seem to pass. The main thing Intel has been doing to speed up the processors is using faster cache, more cache and more cores.

It's impossible to make chips at 5GHz+ or even lower because of current technology. There was one Xeon at 5GHz+ and some at 4.8GHz ( don't remember exactly version ) but all were dual core as I remember. All manufacturers are moving to multi-cores because of technology limitations and it's not only Intel. Something else is to show 10GHz+ clock in the lab and something else is to make mass production.
On the other hand barely anyone needs so fast processors. I count that maybe 95% computers run at 3GHz or less and it's enough for most users.

There is no special difference if CPU has 8x 2.5GHz cores or 4x 5GHz ... all that matters is if software can handle multithreading. Right now barely any application can't and because of amount of processes in modern systems, more cores ( at least till some point ) give better results than 1-2 higher clocked cores.

I didnt actually mean a single core with a high frequency.

What I mean is transistor cound and amount of cache.

So instead of 4 billion transistor across 2 cores, hows about 8 billion with one core ( clock speed no different) and perhaps double the cache.

In example of course.