Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: ElPolloDiabl on January 22, 2010, 08:07:34 PM
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Open up the task manager in Windows and watch how windows jumps from process to process apparently at random. Can someone explain to me why it can't operate in an orderly fashion.
It suggests windows is just stitched together from various pieces rahter than being design wholistically.
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Windows is a collection of processes, correct.
If you sort by name instead of CPU usage, the list will be easier to follow.
Try "top" on a unix-based OS, exactly the same thing.
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Windows is a collection of processes, correct, and not all processes use the processor simultaneously! (gasp)
If you sort by name instead of CPU usage, the list will be easier to follow.
Try "top" on a unix-based OS, exactly the same thing.
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Open up the task manager in Windows and watch how windows jumps from process to process apparently at random. Can someone explain to me why it can't operate in an orderly fashion.
It suggests windows is just stitched together from various pieces rahter than being design wholistically.
The reason the task manager, top etc. appear to do this is the fact that task switching usually happens much, much faster than the monitor application is updated. It also depends on how you've chosen to order the data. In a system where one process is clobbering the CPU, it'll invariably appear at the top when organising by CPU time (which is generally the default).
AmigaOS is no different, other than the lack of dynamic priority scheduling (can be added using Executive). Exec gives processor time in turn to each ready to run process in the current list. Only sleeping processes are skipped over.
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Open up the task manager in Windows and watch how windows jumps from process to process apparently at random. Can someone explain to me why it can't operate in an orderly fashion.
It suggests windows is just stitched together from various pieces rahter than being design wholistically.
What order would you like?
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You can see the same thing in all other modern (and not so modern) OS's.
Maybe when you are browsing the web, you can click on links in a distinctly timed interval, instead of at random? That way the OS can schedule it's response in a similar interval. Will 30 second intervals work?
If so, the mp3 you have playing in the background, will play a 5 second portion of the song, at 35 second intervals.
We can talk about where to schedule TCP sends/receives next, (and disk writes, and some other minor tasks)...
It's the nature of multitasking and priorities...
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I don't want to revive this thread (the great joystick timing debate), but there's an OK discussion on Windows scheduling starting on or around post 919 (mine).
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=511871
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=511871&postcount=919
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That Windows thingy will never catch on.
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Slightly off-topic, but one thing I find infuriating about Vista is how sometimes the hard disk will be getting completely thrashed, yet nothing shows up in Task Manager suggesting that any particular process is up to much. Yes, I realise that high disk IO = high processor usage went out when DMA came along, but still, normally I would expect to be able to pick out a process that was doing that much disk work.
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Indexing?
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Slightly off-topic, but one thing I find infuriating about Vista is how sometimes the hard disk will be getting completely thrashed, yet nothing shows up in Task Manager suggesting that any particular process is up to much. Yes, I realise that high disk IO = high processor usage went out when DMA came along, but still, normally I would expect to be able to pick out a process that was doing that much disk work.
You can. Press ctrl-alt-del, go to performance, then resource monitor and click the disk tab. As previously mentioned it's probably the indexing service doing this, the vista indexer can be a bit flaky.
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I found a site to turn off indexing on Vista:
http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-vista/#vista-tips-tweaks (http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-vista/#vista-tips-tweaks)
You can also turn off the caching and get all your memory back. Funny it seems faster with the caching off.
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Nope, I tried switching off indexing, no difference. Occasionally I've fired up procmon and found the system doing a tour of the system32 folder, so perhaps it is due to seriously agressive Windows File Protection?
SuperFetch - it really would suck if the performance advantages of SuperFetch resulted in the savings of app startup time being transferred to a longer boot time!
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Your best bet is to switch to linux :lol:
Seriously, on my dual boot, I hear the HD grinding regularly on Vista, yet I only hear the tiniest rattle when doing some obvious file access on linux.
If it weren't for games, I wouldn't even have a windows install.
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You could try disabling the swapfile and see if that makes the grinding go away.
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You could try disabling the swapfile and see if that makes the grinding go away.
Come on, the machine only has 4GB of RAM. It'll never boot without some swap to molest :roflmao:
In fairness, I'm not convinced it's that, really. I flayed my Vista install. No themes (looks just like Win2000, but with thicker borders), every non-critical service blocked from starting, indexing disabled, you name it.
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We've had this conversation before, too. It's the object cache, and the process runs at a very low priority. Free memory is wasted memory. If you start thinking in terms of all volatile memory acting as cache, it makes sense: CPU caches (L1, L2, et al) <= RAM <= nonvoltile memory (disk). With a 64-bit virtual address space, it even makes sense to report nonvolatile storage as "memory" and ignore RAM completely when not talking about caching. This makes even more sense on systems like the iPhone, where the traditional file system model has been replaced by application-specefic datastores transparently accessed locally or via "the cloud." Eventually, even disk storage will simply be cache. As storage performance improves, the line between RAM and disk gets fuzzy anyway.
EDIT: Some perspective. The DRAM used in classic Amiga accelerators has a maximum throughput of about 200 MBps. The lowliest of typical SSDs has a maximum read throughput of about 170 MBps, while the best approach 250 MBps. Access times in SDDs are quickly improving, as are peripheral buses. It won't be long before nonvolatile storage is indistinguishable from local RAM in terms of performance. When that happens, RAM will either be displaced completely (you can reserve a portion of disk for the purpose), or it will be used as cache. Since storage devices already have cache, RAM could become completely redundant, depending on the needs of the system. Some implementers may prefer to keep caching algorithms under the control of the operating system.