The essence of dual processors is that individual actions may take the
same time, but you can do more simultaneously.
The NT execution scenario is the thread, which is an independent flow of
control. With two processors you can run two threads simultaneously, it's
as simple as that.
If the operation you want to perform has been coded as just one thread,
then having two processors can't ever speed you up as there's nothing for
the second CPU to do in that context. Of course it can go off and do
someone else's thread so the overall operation of the system is smoother.
A particular operation like rendering will only go faster if the
application has been specifically coded to chop the process into a number
of lumps that can be calculated independently. Then you can start all
those lumps off at the same time in separate threads and NT or W2K will
handle the way those threads use multiple processors.
The Adobe multi-threading feels more like a hurried add-on, and I'm not
sure whether critical operations like applying a filter have been properly
multi-threaded. If they haven't then they won't speed up with W2K, but at
least you can have something else with less of a slow-down effect.
quoton@dial.kfu.com (Quoton) wrote:
> "Enoch's Vision, Inc. (Cary Enoch R...)" wrote:
>
> > > "Quoton" <quoton@dial.kfu.com> wrote:
> > > > down any more. However, Photoshop (5.5) is noticeably slower on
> > > > Win2K than
> > > Win98.
> >
> > That's highly abnormal and indicative that something is not right
> > with your Win2K
> > installation. It could be any of a number of things including a
> > virus, excessive
> > fragmentation, too little RAM or too many background programs,
> > inefficient swapfile
> > settings for either PS or the operating system itself, etc. Win2K is
> > inherently faster
> > than Win98 in everything.
>
> It was a fresh installation with 512MB of SDRAM. I had nothing else
> running other than
> perhaps a window explorer screen. My scanner was scanning which
> probably made one
> processor busy. The 2nd CPU was then opening a couple of dozen image
> files (for testing
> the performance purpose). PS opened about half a dozen real fast then
> it slowed down.
> This did not happen under Win98 with only one processor and the scanner
> was scanning
> too. The scanner slowed down though.
>
> I did observe that with dual processor PS did not run any faster on my
> machine.
> I agree that something is not right. Well, the machine is a dual 550MHz
> Pent-III
> with 512MB PC-100 memory. It is not a slow machine so I have not spent
> time to
> figure out what's wrong yet. I just checked that PS Multi Processor
> Support Extention
> is shown on Help/About/Plug-In.
>
> Quoton
>
> >
> > > > My guess is that PS is a 16 bit program optimized under 16 bit OS
> > > > such as
> > > Win98.
> > > > But Win2K is a 32 bit OS.
> > >
> > > Odd. I thought PS5.5 and later were optimised for dual processors
> > > out of
> > > the box. :-7
> > > Maybe there's a config setting somewhere?
> >
> > PS has been optimized for dual processors at least since v4.0 and
> > possibly earlier.
> > There's nothing to configure. PS Setup recognizes an SMP system and
> > installs the
> > Multiprocessor Support Extension automatically.
> >
> > Click Help/About Plug In. If it shows an entry for Multiprocessor
> > Support then everything
> > was setup okay. If not then the system itself was misconfigured and
> > is using the wrong
> > Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL).
> >
> > Cary Enoch Reinstein aka Enoch's Vision, Inc., Peach County, Georgia
> > ; http://www.bahaivision.com -- "Behind
> > all these
> > manifestations is the one radiance, which shines through all things.
> > The function of art
> > is to reveal this radiance through the created object." ~Joseph
> > Campbell
>
>
