Will OS' Need to Evolve to Better Support Multi-Core CPUs?
Will OS' Need to Evolve to Better Support Multi-Core CPUs?
Posted 03/23/2010 at 5:32pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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A Microsoft kernel engineer, Dave Probert, gave a presentation last week about the future of multi-core computing. He claims that modern operating systems fail to take full advantage of multi-core CPUs. "Why should you ever, with all this parallel hardware, ever be waiting for your computer?" asked Probert.
Currently all operating systems share cores among all the running processes. Probert believes a more efficient method would be to assign processes to cores. This method could allow OS designers to discard ideas like protected memory, leading to a faster overall system. But not all computing experts agree.
Many feel that the problem is not task-switching between cores, but that processes just take too long to complete. The most efficient way to improve multi-core utilization may be to find a better way to split up tasks among cores. The Parallel Computing Research Center has been working on this for some time now. No one’s quite sure how we’ll make use of multi-core technology in the future, but it’s clear we have a way yet to go
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nHeroGo
March 24, 2010 at 11:54am
Everything about computing is so complex. Even the simplest things are complex. I can't view streaming flash video reliably without a random daily freeze at some point. Or wake up from hibernation without a crash.
So when someone says, let's build an OS that is using the cores (since the competition in making processors nowadays is who can stick in the most cores rather than run the highest clock frequency) everybody goes "yeah, that's a great idea, Bob!" And I agree, that's a great idea.
UPDATE: Software could use some multi-core vitamins. I'm zipping some files for the next ten minutes because the CPU is only working at 16%.
mothrpe
March 24, 2010 at 6:28am
Something not discussed as much is the bottleneck that hard drives impose on pc's
i got a q6600 oc'd to 3.0ghz, and a wd caviar black 1tb, my cpu is pretty much never maxed out, so why do I have to wait for things, The answer is the hard drive. You can only process whats being read and written as it comes.
Installing good ssd's is a real performance booster, making an old machine blaze speed, check out articles like this:
http://www.laptopmag.com/advice/tips/can-an-ssd-save-an-old-notebook.aspx?page=2
gendoikari1
March 23, 2010 at 5:43pm
I think that assignment to cores would be a good thing, especially with stuff like Turbo Boost/whatever the hell Thuban has. Assign everything to the first 1/2 cores, which take advantage of the increase in speed.
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