Multi-Threaded Programming Without the Pain

[kirk jim]

This is not OT, in order to use vista you should have a multicore machine,
the bloat is such that on single cores its too slow. New apps must be
made...

http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38978

Gigahertz are out and cores are in. Programmers must begin to develop
applications that take full advantage of the increasing number of cores
present in modern computers. However, multi-threaded development has been
notoriously hard to do. Researcher Stefanus Du Toit discusses and
demonstrates RapidMind, a software system he co-authored, that takes the
pain out of multi-threaded programming in C++. For his demo he created a
program on the PlayStation 3 representing thousands of chickens, each
independently tracked by a single processing core. The talk itself is
interesting but the demo is golden.

 

[Shane Nokes]

How do you get that impression?

My laptop was my primary testing machine for Vista for nearly 2 years.

It's CPU is a single core Pentium M rated at 2.0GHZ.
It has only 1GB of RAM as well.

It ran all of the beta builds perfectly.

It currently runs Vista Home Premium without a hitch.

Now if you want to say that Multi-Core is the way of the future and that
newer software will run better in that environment, IF it's programmed
properly, then you're quite correct.

However that's true of any application. If it is designed to take advantage
of a new feature designed to help a computer run faster then it will do so.

In fact you just proved why newer machines are faster with Vista than with
XP. Vista is much better equipped for Multi-Core/Multi-Processor systems.

XP's ability to scale is actually not all that great.

So good job for making a point of why Vista is faster than XP on the same
hardware

 

[kirk jim]

In fact you just proved why newer machines are faster with Vista than >with

XP. Vista is much better equipped for Multi-Core/Multi-Processor systems.
XP's ability to scale is actually not all that great.

PROOF please... where did you get this information....
It seems like a bunch of hogwash to me.... but I am ready to take that back
if you provide proof.

 

[Shane Nokes]

Simple answer for that.

XP was designed as a workstation only OS.

Workstations in 2001 were typically defined as a single processor unit.

The kernel of XP was designed to handle a maximum of 2CPUs (only for XP Pro
however, XP Home can only handle 1CPU).

Now that's not necessarily the same as being able to handle multiple cores.
When XP first came out the kernel could only handle 1 core per CPU. That
changed however after the release of Service Pack 2. Microsoft quietly
slipped out a GDR (General Distribution Release) update that actually
patched the kernel to allow multi-core support for both Pro and Home.

XP's kernel itself however is still designed to be single-threaded per
application. That basically means that no matter what the application's
settings call for XP itself can only allow that task to run 1 thread at a
time on 1 core.

Vista's kernel (since now the server OS Longhorn & the client OS share the
same exact kernel) on the other had was designed with
multi-core/multi-processor systems in mind.

It has the ability to scale usage of applications and re-assign thread
affinities within a single task, which XP could not do.

The simplest way of proving this is running a benchmark that's designed to
test out a multi-core/multi-processor system. SiSoft SANDRA comes to mind as
an excellent testing ground. If you're running a dual-boot right now on a
Multi-Core/Multi-Processor system run the CPU Benchmarking tests in XP then
in Vista. The numbers will surprise you.

On my system it was well over a 20% difference in the results, in favor of
Vista.

I'm actually planning on doing a reinstall here soon on my system (I'm
testing Windows Home Server on this system for a couple days to see if some
oddities I'm having on another system are system specific or not) so I could
setup an XP/Vista dual-boot and run a quick round of testing and give you
actual numbers if you'd like.

 

[kirk jim]

source please.... Give me an online source.

I need statistics to see how much better vista performs using a multicore in
comparrison to XP....

I am sure that there is nil or very little difference....

If you do your tests in a scientific manner.. then I would be more than glad
to see them... and assist you in your test in any way... I dont have a
multicore here to do any tests myself...

and what about 2003 server then? the kernel was 5.2 apposed to 5.1 of XP....
and server can handle lots of cpu's...

 

[Shane Nokes]

Server is not XP though.

You're stating that Vista is crap and XP is better, not Server 2003.

Server 2003 is still not quite as good as Vista's kernel but it is better
than XP's speed-wise.

Here's a link for you:

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/13487

Now I'm sure you'll point out the negative parts of the article hardcore.

But read the part about Multi-Tasking very carefully.

There was a 31% difference they found in Vista's favor.

Now here is the $20,000,000 question for you.

Who do you know these days that runs only one application at a time?

Benchmarks (where vista gets it's really bad scores typically) are designed
to test the machine one scenario at at time.

Real-world usage where you're going more than just one thing is where Vista
shines.

As I said the OS is at its best when you're actually using it.

Vista is like the smart kid who sucks at tests at school.

You know the kid who actually knows all the answers but has issues when it's
test time? That's Vista as this stage due to the nature of the tests, and
due to the fact that not enough applications have been written to take
advantage of the abilities of the new kernel.

When Adobe's new CS3 suite comes out let's see what happens with the
benchmarks as far as Vista vs XP goes. You're going to be finding more than
a few surprises.

 

[kirk jim]

Hello I will read the link... and what you say makes sense if indeed
there is a difference.... I will welcome it...

intel has a plan for 100 core machines in 5 years.. we will see an explosion
of multicores...

if you find any data on this in the future please post it here...
thanx

 

[Shane Nokes]

Actually it's an 80 core CPU that they are working on for that time-frame

It's one of the projects that I've been following for a long time.

The other one is something called Lightspeed from AMD.

They finished part of that project but there is more due to come out.