Vrad using %25 of the cpu.

[Gambini]

I recently replaced my old Pentium Dual Core E2200 by a Core i3 3220 3.3ghz. But among the things I expected to find improvements, there is Vrad. It takes three times less to compile, but about half of the time it´s only using %25 of the CPU. I have it set to normal priority and have all CPU affinities enabled.

Is this normal? Is there a way to make it use more CPU? Note that I´m still running Windows XP as there´s a problem with the drivers of my router and if I boot from my Windows 7 drive, I lose internet connection. Will W7 64bits make it take more advantage of the CPU?

[ScarT]

64-bit Windows 7 is ideal. Even more ideal is Windows 8 64-bit.

[zombie@computer]

xp shouldnt limit the number of cores vrad uses. When it starts, it should mention something about the number of threads vrad is using. If, for some reason, it is less than 4, you can override it using the -threads # commandline option, but i think vrad uses all by default already

[Gambini]

Yeah, when it starts it says 4 threads. But with my old system it was consuming 99% of the CPU all the time (unless I lowered its priority). Now it starts with %66, then goes to %99, then to %25 then to %50 then to %25 again, etc... About half of the total time it´s on 25%. Maybe It doesn´t need to use that much resources... But I want it to compile faster!

[ErikKiller]

If you already have 7 then why not just boot into that for compiles? You can live without the Internet for 10-120 minutes.

[Gambini]

Well, because having no internet connection means I didn´t install anything yet. Tomorrow I´ll go to the store to replace the motherboard, then when the ethernet thing works I´m gonna install Steam on that other drive and then move all my files to it.

[marnamai]

I have exactly the opposite problem. Vbsp, vvis and vrad all use 99% of the cpu, bringing anything else I am doing to a grinding halt ...

I should look into way of permanently limiting cpu usage for those processes. Setting the priority via taskmanager is only a temporary solution.

edit: adding "-low" into the advanced compile options works

[ScarT]

marnimai you should be able to fix that by using n - 1 threads. So if your CPU supports 8 threads you should use 7 (or 6 if 7 isn't low enough).

[marnamai]

-low seems to work okay for now, I 'll try -threads tommorow, I am not sure what the big difference besides more control over the threads is?

[Gambini]

Using low priority is better, as when there are no other cpu demands, it gonna go 100% anyway.

[ScarT]

No. Running with -low sets the process affinity to low which means Windows (the CPU really) gives the process low priority at all times. It's basically running like a background process.

Changing the amount of threads changes the allow number of threads a process can use. All threads use 100% of the processing power for each thread whenever the CPU gives the process CPU time.