Herb Sutter, a software architect from Microsoft, gave a speech yesterday at In-Stat/MDR's Fall Processor Forum. Addressing a crowd mostly consisting of hardware engineers, he talked about how the software world was ill-prepared to make use of the new multicore CPUs coming from Intel and AMD.
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Member since:2005-06-30
Multithreading is much more pervasive in the Windows world than it is in desktop Unix software. Most nontrivial programs are not multithreaded, and definitely not in a manner in which to exploit parallelism in a high-performance manner. And this is what matters as the ability for increases in clock speed to provide performance increases slows. This isn't a matter of seeing a nonzero performance increase over the entire span of your computing experience through SMP, it's no longer finding the explosive growth in the performance of any single task's performance that you've come to expect.
Member since:2005-07-06
Next question... does XP handle 4 or more cores sanely, without having to buy a "server" edition?
Yes it does. Windows is licensed based upon the physical CPU (not taking into account their VM licensing). Windows can tell the difference between virtual CPUs (i.e., hyperthreading or multiple cores) and the physical CPU that sits in the socket. XP Home is licensed for one physical CPU, but supports any number of virtual CPUs. Likewise, XP Pro is licensed for 2 physical CPUs with any number of virtual CPUs. This extends up through their server editions as well, Datacenter currently topping out at 128 physical CPUs (32 on x86).
Member since:"This extends up through their server editions as well, Datacenter currently topping out at 128 physical CPUs (32 on x86)."
Nope, as I stated in an earlier post, Windows Server can only enumerate a max of 64 CPU cores in a single OS instance due to the use of a simple 64bit CPU mask. This can and likely will be changed in the next release.
Member since:2005-09-15
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Member since:
2005-07-14
s/software world/Windows world/
But even on Windows, nobody is running one application at a time. The OS has things to do periodically, most people run real-time virus scanners, spyware filters, etc. They have their IM clients going, email, etc.
As soon as you've got more than one application trying to do something at the same time, you're benefitting from multicore, just like you would from old-style multi-CPU SMP. Assuming your OS can schedule threads across cores, which the NT series (NT, 2000, XP) can.
Most non-trivial applications use threading internally, too... instant multicore boost.
Next question... does XP handle 4 or more cores sanely, without having to buy a "server" edition? Apple's just proven that OS X handles 2x CPUs with 2x cores each, without changes or drivers or a "server" license. I eagerly await their x86 boxes.
- chrish