More about Bulldozer

Further on the new AMD Bulldozer architecture, one will see that it is actually made up of blocks of 2 cores. Each of these is called a 'Bulldozer module', and each shares an L2 cache, an FPU, and more. When looking at it from this perspective, this will help people to understand why it is most efficient to *try* to keep the workload on every other core, if possible. Not only for TurboCore, but also due to the intrinsic properties of the platform.

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AMD Bulldozer hotfix appears - changes Scheduler awareness of CPU from X real cores to 1/2 X real cores

AMD Bulldozer hotfix appears - changes Scheduler awareness of CPU from X real cores to 1/2 X real cores

After appearing briefly a few weeks ago, then disappearing due to reported user complications, the AMD Bulldozer hotfixes for Windows have been re-released, or in the process of being re-released. A helpful supporter of Bitsum pointed this out. Over the course of the day, I noticed an additional download became available (at the first link).


This update DOES change the way the Windows sees your CPU, and can cause Process Lasso to deactivate under some scenarios. This is because it changes the CPU Scheduler's recognition of these AMD processors from (for example) 8 real cores to 4 real cores with 4 hyper-threaded (fake) cores. This is essentially a cheap hack to get performance on par and make use of TurboCore and the intrinsic characteristics of the Bulldozer architecture (e.g. shared L2 cache per 'module' of 2 cores) by telling the scheduler to keep its load on no more than 1/2 of the processors, if it can - and keep any large load off the other cores, if it can.


For example, before this update the below would read "[8 cores: 8 logical]". Meaning, 8 physical (real) cores, 8 total cores.

Now, as the reader can see, the OS thinks there are only 4 real cores, and 4 hyper-threaded (fake) cores. In this way, it is an easy and quick 'hack' to get the Scheduler to play nice with the Bulldozer platform and its 'paired' CPUs with shared L2 caches. Microsoft simply used the pre-existing support for HyperThreaded CPUs.


This will not hurt performance, it will help it. The other cores will get *fully* used under highly threaded situations, they are just avoided. These cores are also now frequently in a 'parked' state, so this update may conserve energy as well.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2645594
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2646060

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Process Lasso v5.1.0.27 final

v5.1.0.27 final

Downloads:

Workstation/Home/Standard:
32-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/prolasso.zip
64-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/prolasso64.zip

Server Edition:
32-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/server/prolasso.zip
64-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/server/prolasso64.zip

Changes:

• [.27]Fix.GUI: Fixed failure in unchecking process watchdog rules via the context menu.
• [.27]Fix.GUI: Fixed disabled 'Change CPU affinity during restraint' ProBalance menu option
• [.27]Fix.Core: Fixed theoretical issue where certain services could be lowered in priority class by ProBalance even if services were set to be excluded (the default)
• [.27]Change.Core: First step of a series of ProBalance adjustments planned (incrementally being phased in for maximal safety)
• [.27]Addition.Core: Added 'any' memory metric for watchdog options
• [.27]Addition.GUI: Added UI (dialog) support for 'any' memory metric for memory watchdog actions
• [.27]Addition.GUI: Added new mechanism to check to see if you are using the latest recommended defaults (only asks once per change of the defaults, unless you tick 'do not ask me again')
• [.27]Change.GUI: New process watchdog memory rules now are created with default of 'Any Metric'
• [.27]Change.All: Adjusted ProBalance defaults for better system-specific auto-tuning
• [.27]Change.GUI: Several languages updated

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ASUS Motherboard Utilities Self-Lower in Priority

I was updating my ASUS motherboard's included software suite of useful and useless utilities, and found that they all behaved 'nicely'. What I mean is that the resident (always running) ones lowered their priority class to Below Normal when not active. Yes, very reminiscent of Process Lasso's ProBalance. Could it be, that ProBalance is affecting the design decisions developers make? It is possible. After all, Google set the example in Chrome, with it lowering the priority class of its forked processes (tabs).

If more software made a conscious effort to set its own process priority class and/or individual thread priorities, then perhaps the PC would be a better environment. That is why Process Lasso ignores (by default) processes with non-normal priority classes. It assumes they have been adjusted by the program itself, the user, or a third-party application and so shouldn't be changed. Thread priorities, of course, remain relative to the process priority class, thus their relation to each other is not changed when the priority class is adjusted.

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Process Lasso v5.1.0.26 final

v5.1.0.26 final

Downloads:

Workstation/Home/Standard:
32-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/prolasso.zip
64-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/prolasso64.zip

Server Edition:
32-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/server/prolasso.zip
64-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/server/prolasso64.zip

Changes:

• [.26]Change.GUI: New German graph legend
• [.26]Change.GUI: German out of date warning removed
• [.26]Change.GUI: Russian out of date warning removed (an oversight, as it was/is up to date)
• [.26]Change.GUI: Updated Traditional Chinese
• [.26]Change.GUI: Updated Italian
• [.26]Change.GUI: Updated Polish
• [.26]Change.GUI: Updated Finnish
• [.26]Change.Core: Default ProBalance parameters tweaked a little for higher end systems (more mods under testing)

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Process Lasso v5.1.0.25 final

v5.1.0.25 final

Downloads:

Workstation/Home/Standard:
32-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/prolasso.zip
64-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/prolasso64.zip

Server Edition:
32-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/server/prolasso.zip
64-bit: http://www.bitsum.com/files/server/prolasso64.zip

Changes:

• [.23]Fix.GUI: Fixed issue with the some metrics of tamper protected security products being shown incorrectly - though most are unavailable
• [.23]Fix.GUI: Fixed issue with tamper protected processes being listed in the Active Processes list
• [.23]Change.GUI: Gray out Vista Multimedia Scheduler menu option in XP
• [.23]Change.GUI: Graph is hidden by default in NT5 or below, unless user preference overrides (reset this version only)
• [.23]Change.GUI: Improved code efficiency related to avoidance of tamper protection processes
• [.23]Change.GUI: Updated German
• [.24]Change.Core: Improved important code that has implications throughout, boosting performance and thread safety both in many places
• [.24]Change.Core: Decreased CPU consumption of core engine
• [.24]Change.GUI: Minor string adjustments
• [.24]Change.All: Refactored some internal code to improve performance
• [.24]Change.GUI: Several language updates
• [.25]Fix.All: Fix small activation state problem in .24 that lasted a few hours

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Bitsum Technologies on Google+

I am often posting to Google+ these days, under our new business profile there. You can access it here: https://plus.google.com/111452122533164797807/posts

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