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how does dual core work?

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Zatrix

Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2004
Location
moving to ohio once 2012 gets closer
I mean how does it determine what to run and stuff?

for example. if im playing a game and surfing the internet how does it know to run the game on one core and the operating system on the other?

or to burn a cd on one core and play a game on the other?

can someone clarify?
 
Windows balances the load of one process across both cores, unless you specify it to assign a process to a certain core.
 
theoretically yes
but does it actually do it that way? no.

it depends on your processes. Some are small. others are large.
 
-_{MoW}_-Assasi said:
nonono, for single threaded programs that isnt the case, a single thread can only go through a single core, multithreaded proggys DO go throught the process these guys just explained ;)

I do believe you're wrong nonono. Just run, for example, one instance of folding and move the mouse around a bit. If you do ctrl-alt-del and look at the performance then windows does exactly what Terra said. Windows balances the load so the folding prog gets the equivilent of 100% of one processor but this seems to be done by moving the work around depending on what's happening elsewhere. It will move it to the 2nd core if the system needs core 1 for something like moving the mouse.
 
Well this is a change..Most times I see a thread on this topic and I read 1 core runs O/S and one runs apps LOL..


SMP is how dual core works and it is a system that load balances the threads as evenly as possible on both cores.It can do this even on a single threaded app because cache and memory is share by both cores making each cpu privy to the others information in real time :)
 
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