high CPU usage....

I have noticed that wehn i am running widnlife, my CPU is running on 60 - 92%..
is this right?
should it be this high?

sorry, i dont know much about CPU etc... i only looked becasue a freind mentioned theres was on 50% and the RC viewer they use only runs on about 15%

before i say my ideas about this. First i want to say the people that believe turning off cpu cores solves this problems don`t reply to this message. The is a old way of solving this no long applies to the first look client.


Problem is there is a massive memory leak in this client and there is very little e can do about it. Try a 3rd party client. may say it better.

Well, as Usagi said, there IS a memory leak still. Not as bad as it was tho.

But thats Memory. a.k.a. RAM.

Nothing to do with CPU.

Windlight is pretty intense for older systems, as in "not brand spanking new-cutting edge".

SL itself is pretty damn intense on CPU's.

What you're seeing is normal. In fact, it's pretty damn good! I've seen SL peg my CPU's at almost 100%.

SL is a CPU intensive application. More RAM helps offset this. So does better video cards that have fast processors & more RAM.

Its just the nature of the beast.

Single core cpu will probably be 90% or higher at all times with SL (unless the SL is running in the background)

Dual core CPUs will be 100% of one core (50% of cpu) and a few % of the other ussualy.

When SL is not in "focus" then it drops to 15-20% or so...

ok.. ty for your replies.. i jsut wanted to make sure it was normal
i only have 1024 ram and my friuend has 2k, that must be why hers is lower than mine

I haven't seen my CPU run more than 50% in a long long time. On my last computer with a P4 dual core 3.0 gig processor it ran between 40 and 50% consistantly. On this computer wiith a core 2 dual quad 2.8 gig processor it runs around 35% consistantly. Setting affinity to a single core never helped me much (maybe 1 or 2%........not worth the effort to set it each time I run SL). And the very first machine I had that ran SL was an old P4 single core 1.5 gig processor........it ran about 60% most of the time.

I don't know why some computers struggle in the processing department and others don't. I guess I've been lucky since the three machines I've run SL on don't really work that hard like many others. Oh, the RAM on the first machine was 512 to start then upped to 768 megs. Second was 1 gig upped later to 1.5 gigs. And this one is 3 gigs.

Can I ask where you get these readings?
Love
June

Yes............Turning off cores results in lower proformance, doesnt raise fps. Unlike how some are trying to explain it increases over all fps. If i understand what you wrote correctly. Why people still believe turning off dual or even quad cores down to a single core still puzzles the mind.

The only reason to do that is because SL might actually perform worse when it comes to specific tasks. If everything is coming off your cache, sure, why bother setting affinity? But if you've got loads of objects to render it may confuse the computer as to which core to use. Running multiple threads helps other applications more than it does SL.

Some geekery to follow...

Programs with a graphical user interface have what's called an event loop, or "main loop", which just sits waiting for you to press buttons, move the mouse, etc. Ideally, if there are no events to process the program should yield some time to other programs. SL is special, though, in that it's never really idle. When it isn't processing mouse moves and whatnot it's very busy drawing frames. As fast as it possibly can. That is, there's never really any idle time.

So, if you have one processor and it's not multi-core and doesn't do hyperthreading you *should* see CPU utilization near 100%. If you have hyperthreading (ala P4), windows performance monitor sees this an another core, so you should see your CPU utilization near 50%; more if your computer is doing other things.

But that's not a very friendly way to run a program. Even a very busy program like SL should yield some time to the operating system. For whatever reason, LL decided not to do this with SL. Probably thinking if you're running SL you want to get the best frame rate possible.

When you change focus to another window, notice that your CPU utilization drops a lot. That's because under that circumstance SL reluctantly decides to yield some power. If you iconize SL it will also yield some.

Using a command line argument you can get SL to yield some even when it's the active window. See this page for info on the yield parameter (used to be called cooperative or cooperate or something):

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Client_parameters

The instructions for doing this are crappy. If you want more info, let me know.

I've found that with a yield value of 100 CPU usage (and frame rate) drops a lot. You can probably do well with a value less that that.

as many understands multi cores don`t run well on many programs.

Only if you play "Crysis"!!

Love that game!

Anya!! Will you marry me?? Me luvz a girl who knows her computer hardware that well!!

do u all even realise that you have given me a migraine with all this computer stuff? lol

i have no idea what you're all talking about when u mention dual core core etc.

all i know is i have a p4 with 1024 ram and a flatscreen monitor O.o

oh.. and i have a little button that turns the power on and off.. that was one of the first things i learned about my pc

Love you Sara, but you started it off in your orginal post and technical things.
I did not know what you were talking about so I asked you above but you not told me, yet.
At the moment you know more about computers than me, please make us even.
Love
June

Maybe you should have posted your specs at the start to have everyone confused

Maybe you could answer my question?
Love, June

90-100% is normal for your computer.

Your friends has a lot lower usage because her computer is better.

June,
<Ctrl>-<Alt>-<Del>
Click "Task manager" button.
Click "Performance" tab
Also, note the tray at the bottom right where the clock and things are. There is now a CPU usage icon there. You can minimize the Task Manager and still see the CPU usage. You just have to run SL in a window so you can see it.

Sara,
Some people are trained in PC's from college, work or personal exprierence. Some of us are just geeks and can recite Pi to the 10th digit and know what the "T" stands for in James T. Kirk. I work with people who have multiple doctorate degrees and they know even less about their computer than you do. No, that is not an exageration.

Dual core just means that where you have a pentium 4, they have 2 (dual) pentium 4's crammed into one chip. Obviously, if you have two things doing the work they only have to work half as hard.

Tiberius

3.1415926536

All I know about pi is that Spock used it to confuse a computer once.

Sara, if you have a laptop that's running SL at near 100% (really common), do consider getting a cooling pad or even just rigging up a fan to blow under it. They get really hot if you run them that way for hours, and then may blow their RAM. If it's a desktop, probably no problem, tho some people do take of a side panel in this situation.

Just another little tiny piece of geekery: another reason why CPU usage can be really high in one machine and not in another similar one, is a difference in the graphics hardware.

If a person has older Intel graphics chips or other inadequate ones, then the CPU will end up doing a whole lot of extra work helping out the graphics hardware.

Yosef: you're slipping. *blows him a kiss*

Thanks for how to CPU useage.
Tried it on 2 Desktops
Got the high figures Sara gets.

2.20 Ghz AMD Athlon 64
2 gb RAM
GeForce 7600GS

2.20 Ghz AMD Athlon 64
3 gb RAM
GeForce 7900GS

Do you advise extra cooling?
Should I consider a change to the proceeser, is it possible to do, is it as easy as changing the memory/graphic card was, of course cost then is the question.
These are questions that now arrise for me.
I'm happy with the picture I get on my monitor, OK I would like a quicker response when I TP to another location in SL, IE less Grey time and settling down time to seeing all.
Thanks
June

if your cpu is below 100% doesnt that mean that your gfx card is way too slow for your cpu?

Changing the processor is a bit more complicated than changing RAM which even I can and have done, or changing a graphics card which looks about as simple. one thing I've been told to consider is a better graphics card will general require more power, so your power supply may be inadequate. I have a 350 watt power supply for instance, and while I probably should upgrade the graphics (Radeon X300) I am not going to buy a new power supply as well.