Microsoft Predictions for 2008: Games group housecleaning continues (Microsoft in 2008: 10 Predictions)

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Ah yes, that's the applications . . .

"Yes and no, it will run each app in a different core but multi-threading across cores has a very long ways to go."

Well, the issue here is that the OS generally isn't in charge of how many threads an application uses - generally it's up to the application, not the OS, to be aware of multiple cores and take full advantage of them.

You can't blame the OS for individual applications not being aware of multiple cores.

Trying to have the OS split applications designed for single cores into multiple cores would be a disaster:

-Most single core applications are written with the expectation that the code is followed in a certain order and in a single thread.

-Multiple cores means that stuff can happen simultaneously, and stuff can happen out of order.

-If the application is forced into multiple threads, several parts of the code are running simultaneously, which the application was never designed to handle.

-The order is now broken, and unexpected things happen.

In other words, forcing normally single threaded apps to run in multiple threads is a big mess. We don't even know if it's even possible to force a normally single threaded app to run on multiple cores without breaking it.

Right now, no OS I know of has the ability to force a single threaded application to run across multiple cores. It's up to the application developer to detect multiple cores and use a multi-threaded approach to take advantage of them.

Posted by: CobraA1   Posted on: 12/18/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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