Odd Dual-core CPU Usage in Celestia.

General discussion about Celestia that doesn't fit into other forums.
Topic author
Johaen
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Location: IL, USA

Odd Dual-core CPU Usage in Celestia.

Post #1by Johaen » 30.10.2006, 04:27

I've read on these forums that Celestia is not multi-thread enabled. Because of this, a user with dual-core processors should have at most around 50% usage. And when you minimize Celestia, it's CPU usage should drop to 0. I've had a different experience. Here are some situations:

1. Zoomed in near Earth or any planet, CPU usage at 100%, Task Manager shows 100% usage in both cores.

2. Still zoomed in near Earth, but Celestia minimized. Task Manager shows 50% usage, with one core havving 0 usage and the other using 100% of the core.

3. When I zoom way out so that nothing is on the screen anymore, CPU usage drops back down to near 0 for both cores, both when Celestia is minimized and when it's maximized.



What's wierd is that it only happens sometimes, so it's been kinda hard to reproduce. Sometimes it works as expected (50% CPU usage maximized, 0% usage when minimized) and sometimes it doesn't. I can't really seem to find a pattern. Plus, this time when testing it, I minimized it when it was using 100% of both cores (as in situation #1 above) and now it's using approx 50% of each core, unlike situation #2 above. I've had V-Sync enabled the entire time and my framerate has never gone above 60 fps. I'm not sure if I can expect any real help from posting this, but maybe someone has noticed any similiar oddities.
Last edited by Johaen on 30.10.2006, 04:32, edited 1 time in total.
AMD Athlon X2 4400+; 2GB OCZ Platinum RAM; 320GB SATA HDD; NVidia EVGA GeForce 7900GT KO, PCI-e, 512MB, ForceWare ver. 163.71; Razer Barracuda AC-1 7.1 Gaming Soundcard; Abit AN8 32X motherboard; 600 watt Kingwin Mach1 PSU; Windows XP Media Center SP2;

Topic author
Johaen
Posts: 341
Joined: 14.01.2006
With us: 18 years 10 months
Location: IL, USA

Post #2by Johaen » 30.10.2006, 04:32

To add on to this, I just tested it a little further. Celestia was acting as I described above, with the 100% CPU usage. I then zoomed way out and Celestia's CPU usage dropped to nearly 0 becuase nothing was being displayed. I then used ctrl+g to go back to Earth, and now everything's working as expected. Celestia was using about 50% of the CPU, and when I minimize it to write this post, it's CPU usage drops to 0. I'm really lost on what could be causing this wierdness.
AMD Athlon X2 4400+; 2GB OCZ Platinum RAM; 320GB SATA HDD; NVidia EVGA GeForce 7900GT KO, PCI-e, 512MB, ForceWare ver. 163.71; Razer Barracuda AC-1 7.1 Gaming Soundcard; Abit AN8 32X motherboard; 600 watt Kingwin Mach1 PSU; Windows XP Media Center SP2;

Topic author
Johaen
Posts: 341
Joined: 14.01.2006
With us: 18 years 10 months
Location: IL, USA

Post #3by Johaen » 30.10.2006, 04:36

Sorry for the triple-post, but I forgot to note that I am using Celestia 1.4.1 with no add-ons at all. System is in the sig. Using NVidia driver 91.47.
AMD Athlon X2 4400+; 2GB OCZ Platinum RAM; 320GB SATA HDD; NVidia EVGA GeForce 7900GT KO, PCI-e, 512MB, ForceWare ver. 163.71; Razer Barracuda AC-1 7.1 Gaming Soundcard; Abit AN8 32X motherboard; 600 watt Kingwin Mach1 PSU; Windows XP Media Center SP2;

chris
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Post #4by chris » 30.10.2006, 05:17

The NVIDIA drivers will make use of multiple CPUs even for single threaded applications. This might explain behavior that you're observing.

--Chris


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