Wine and Dual core CPU

dabbill · Post by **dabbill** » Mon May 05, 2008 1:54 am

I have searched the forums and cant seem to find an answer. I have noticed that when i run games and programs under wine its only useing 1 core. While when i run native Linux apps they use both cores. Also the games and programs that i am running under wine use both cores when run under windows. Is this a bug, or maybe just something i dont have setup correcly on my computer.

Computer specs.
4600+ AMD dual core.
2gig RAM
160gig sata II HD
Geforce 8800GT video card.
Ubuntu 8.04

vitamin · Post by **vitamin** » Mon May 05, 2008 9:41 am

dabbill wrote:I have searched the forums and cant seem to find an answer. I have noticed that when i run games and programs under wine its only useing 1 core. While when i run native Linux apps they use both cores. Also the games and programs that i am running under wine use both cores when run under windows. Is this a bug, or maybe just something i dont have setup correcly on my computer.

Computer specs.
4600+ AMD dual core.
2gig RAM
160gig sata II HD
Geforce 8800GT video card.
Ubuntu 8.04

Wine's GUI part is single-threaded. So yeah it will use only one CPU.

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon May 05, 2008 11:43 am

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 1:54 AM, dabbill <[email protected]> wrote:

I have searched the forums and cant seem to find an answer. I have noticed that when i run games and programs under wine its only useing 1 core. While when i run native Linux apps they use both cores. Also the games and programs that i am running under wine use both cores when run under windows. Is this a bug, or maybe just something i dont have setup correcly on my computer.

Computer specs.
4600+ AMD dual core.
2gig RAM
160gig sata II HD
Geforce 8800GT video card.
Ubuntu 8.04

What apps in particular aren't using dual cores?

dabbill · Post by **dabbill** » Mon May 05, 2008 1:44 pm

The main one i notice it on is World of Warcraft. Also noticed when i am installing stuff with wine it only uses 1 core.

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon May 05, 2008 1:48 pm

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 1:44 PM, dabbill <[email protected]> wrote:

The main one i notice it on is World of Warcraft. Also noticed when i am installing stuff with wine it only uses 1 core.

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11674

Sam Fourman Jr. · Post by **Sam Fourman Jr.** » Mon May 05, 2008 1:49 pm

I notice the CPU almost maxed on World of Warctaft as well, however I
am not sure there is much we can do about it.

For what it is worth I run World of Warcraft on FreeBSD 7, it works
really well. I just wish we could boost fps a little bit.

Sam Fourman Jr.

dabbill · Post by **dabbill** » Mon May 05, 2008 1:56 pm

Thanks, that makes me feel some what better that it is a known bug. Havent really tried any other games cause i cant get that one to play right. Now that i know its a bug i might give some other games a try.

PleegWat · Post by **PleegWat** » Mon May 05, 2008 3:21 pm

dabbill wrote:

The main one i notice it on is World of Warcraft. Also noticed when i am installing stuff with wine it only uses 1 core.

I noticed wow only uses one core on wine too. However, I can't say I've
ever noticed it using both intensively on windows, so it may not be a
wine problem at all.

Dean Hamstead · Post by **Dean Hamstead** » Mon May 05, 2008 5:17 pm

wow may not be using 2 cores in windows, it just may look like it as
windows will flip processes between the cores (giving the illusion of a
program using more than one core) - linux will tend to keep them on one core

you can try changing your scheduler and see if you can squeeze more
performance out. tweaking settings in the video drivers will also give
performance increases, not to mention 'nice' can help smooth things when
used with care.

Dean

PleegWat wrote:

dabbill wrote:
The main one i notice it on is World of Warcraft. Also noticed when i
am installing stuff with wine it only uses 1 core.

I noticed wow only uses one core on wine too. However, I can't say I've
ever noticed it using both intensively on windows, so it may not be a
wine problem at all.

--
http://fragfest.com.au

James McKenzie · Post by **James McKenzie** » Wed May 07, 2008 10:36 am

dabbill wrote:

I have searched the forums and cant seem to find an answer. I have noticed that when i run games and programs under wine its only useing 1 core. While when i run native Linux apps they use both cores. Also the games and programs that i am running under wine use both cores when run under windows. Is this a bug, or maybe just something i dont have setup correcly on my computer.

Computer specs.
4600+ AMD dual core.
2gig RAM
160gig sata II HD
Geforce 8800GT video card.
Ubuntu 8.04

It works the same way on an Intel Mac, which is good when a program
decides that it 'needs' all of one of the cores. I've had problems with
Windows on a Dual Core appearing like it was locked up. Got the Task
Manager to run and one process was consuming 99% of the CPU.

I hope that Wine can be rewritten to use n-1 cores, which will leave at
least one core 'open' in case of a runaway process.

James McKenzie

Markus Hitter · Post by **Markus Hitter** » Thu May 08, 2008 5:19 am

Am 07.05.2008 um 15:54 schrieb James McKenzie:

I hope that Wine can be rewritten to use n-1 cores, which will
leave at least one core 'open' in case of a runaway process.

Leaving one core free won't help you at all. Even with all cores
exhausted you can still launch additional applications or tools.
You'll get 50% of one core only[1], but that's plenty to find and
kill a runaway process.

If you ever experience a totally locked system, this is clearly a bug
of the OS. Ah, and please don't confuse a locked display process with
a locked operating system.

HopeThatHelps,
Markus

[1] Here I've simplified real behaviour a bit.

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Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
http://www.jump-ing.de/