On Sunday, February 03, 2013 02:42:36 AM Adam wrote: > Question about how multicore processors work: > > This is an AMD quad-core system. If, for example, I tell GIMP to perform > some complicated operation on a large image, 'top' and 'htop' show me > that one of the cores is running at 100% while the other cores are doing > almost nothing. I gather this isn't any faster than a single-core > processor running at the same speed would be. It would seem to me to get > the operation done more quickly if several cores were handling it. > > So I guess my question is, why is GIMP only using one core? Does this > have anything to do with how GIMP is coded or compiled? Is there any > way to speed things up by making it use more than one core? Or is each > process only executed by one of the cores? Thanks in advance for any > enlightenment! >
I don't have an authoritative answer to your question. (I'll leave that to our experts). I would speculate that perhaps GIMP runs as a single process, and that a sure-fire way to exploit multiple cores is to launch multiple simultaneous processes. Perhaps a "man GIMP" or a Google search will reveal ways of parallelizing GIMP. I do have the following suggestion. I run a dual-core AMD CPU. I always have on my desktop the gkrellm system monitor. It is configured to report instantaneous activity on each of the cores. It also reports on the CPU frequency. My AMD CPU employs power-saving CPU frequency scaling. Each core is capable of running at up to 3.2 GHz, but they are often scaled back to 800 GHz. I'm looking forward to borrowing a Kill-A-Watt from a local library and measuring my CPU power consumption. (PSU is a 520 watt 80% bronze rating.) Gkrellm is very interesting to watch. -- Phenom II X2 555 | Biostar TA890FXE | 2 x 4G DDR3 1333 | Maxtor 80G PATA | GeForce 210 _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) Vassar College Feb 6 - Raspberry Pi Mar 6 - 10th Anniversary Meeting - Linux where you least expect it Apr 3 - Typography: Physical Art to Digital Art
