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Subject: Re: HyperThreading & Comp v Comp matches

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:20:01 11/22/04

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On November 22, 2004 at 13:02:36, Martin Baumung wrote:

>On November 22, 2004 at 11:23:53, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On November 22, 2004 at 10:48:02, Steve Maughan wrote:
>>
>>>I have a relatively new machine that has a P4 with Hyperthreading.  I've
>>>recently installed Shredder 8 and Gandalf 6.  When playing a match I switched to
>>>the Task Manager to look at the memory usage and noticed that when Gandalf was
>>>thinking, according to the TM, it was only using 50% of the CPU while Shredder 8
>>>was using 100% (both had Ponder = off).  On further investigation Shredder was
>>>using 2 threads in the engine.  Looking at the speed, both were getting
>>>approximately the same nps which is inline with other machines I have tested
>>>them on.
>>>
>>>So the question is - does the Task Manager report the CPU resource usage
>>>incorrectly in this situation i.e. 50% = 100% usage of 1 processor?  I'm
>>>reasonably sure that this is the case but wanted to check.
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>Steve Maughan
>>
>>
>>It is difficult for _any_ program to figure out what is going on, since
>>hyper-threading makes the O/S think there are two equal CPUs, when there really
>>is not...  for engine vs engine you should turn it off in the BIOS...
>
>maybe a silly question, but why should one turn HT off - at least for engine
>matches without pondering? So far I didn't encounter any problems. I've only
>tried Shredder 8, but it gets a few extra nps with HT.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Martin


Some engines will see the second "processor" and use it.  That creates an
imbalance.  If you do ponder-on which is the only way I run, then there are
further ways for the two programs to interfere with each other.  The one that is
the best-behaved in cache will run on a processor that appears to be
significantly faster than the processor for the program that is not so well
behaved...




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