Are your OS/system/background tasks fully multi-threaded through a quad-core CPU?

[The_Absolute]

I was curious if your OS, and background/system tasks are fully multi-threaded throughout all the Four cores of a quad-core CPU. As well as all Eight threads, if that quad core supports hyper-threading.

Most modern games, like Crysis, are only programmed to be threaded through Two processor cores. Which is why a quad-core CPU doesn't make Crysis run faster.

Are there any games that take full advantage of a quad-core CPU? I heard that Far Cry 2 does.

 

[rcgldr]

I don't know about games, but a video rendering package called Adobe Premeire will use all 4 cores.

 

[Topher925]

Most games only use one or two cores. Multi-threading can get difficult so most games just don't use it. Professional software programs like adobe, matlab, ansys, comsol, etc have the ability to use all cores and threads.

 

[slider142]

I was curious if your OS, and background/system tasks are fully multi-threaded throughout all the Four cores of a quad-core CPU. As well as all Eight threads, if that quad core supports hyper-threading.

Yes. Windows natively supports multicore CPUs back to Windows XP, and schedules threads to fill idle cores appropriately, taking into consideration thread priority. Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del in Windows XP and Ctrl+Shift+Esc in Windows Vista and 7) will show a graph of the load on each CPU.

 

[Pattonias]

Sometimes programs can appear to be multi-threading when they are not. The OS can just be alternating between the cores to spread out the load.

 

[The_Absolute]

Sometimes programs can appear to be multi-threading when they are not. The OS can just be alternating between the cores to spread out the load.

Most modern video games are programmed to only be multi-threaded through Two processor cores. Such as Crysis, for example. Are there any games yet which take full advantage of a quad-core processor?