question though. i use an audio player named Cog, which lets me play SHN (Shorten) and FLAC files. these are lossless audio recordings, so playing them natively is far better for me than converting them to MP3/AAC to listen to them. i've got a Dual G5 2.0 GHz box, and whenever i play a SHN file, it will play static at the beginning of the file. someone suggested to me that if i disable my second processor, it will work (this has apparently been a known bug in the app for a long time). i tried it, and it did!
is there any app or extension or utility out there that will let me restrict a particular app to just one processor? the devs for Cog are not likely to fix this any time soon... i'm running 10.4.9 here, and am pretty well versed with UNIX as well, so even if i have to get down and dirty in the Terminal, i'm interested in hearing anyone's input on this.
surely that should be the application writer to change....
"our software wont work with 2 cpus . . . lets tell the users to cripple their machines as the fix ! "
in seriousness though, i would think its unlikely . . . once the OS has the tasks it needs to do, the scheduler just divvies it up between the cores as it sees fit . . . i dont see how you could specify it to stick all to a single core.
surely that should be the application writer to change....
"our software wont work with 2 cpus . . . lets tell the users to cripple their machines as the fix ! "
in seriousness though, i would think its unlikely . . . once the OS has the tasks it needs to do, the scheduler just divvies it up between the cores as it sees fit . . . i dont see how you could specify it to stick all to a single core.
it's not crippling the machine, it's just directing all threads from a certain app at a single processor. and sorry to say this, but both Windows and *NIX systems allow for this to be done with ease. the Mac's Mach Kernel does not apparently, in my research. kinda sucky...
well, i guess it will be up to the app's author to fix, but who knows when that might happen.
You can wrap the launch of the app in calls to sysctl to turn off the second processor while the app is running, and turn it back on after the app quits. That is all that has been demonstrated to work anyway.
lundy, thanks a lot. i don't think i'll be able to successfully do that myself, but i'm gonna post that over on some other forums and hopefully a more resourceful Cog user can whip that together.
I'm using an EyeTV Hybrid as well, and don't notice any flickering or sluggishness.. and this is on a nearly 4 year old dual 2ghz g5.
Over the air HD in the US tops out around 20 megabits which is way below USB2's 480megabit max. Even something like Bluray is only 40-50megabits (or something along those lines).
The only time i notice flickering is when my over the air signal is weak. you can check this by going to eyetv preferences, then going to device, and then going to signal. anything below, or approaching 50% is too low. i get flickering below a 56% strong signal usually.
Over the air HD in the US tops out around 20 megabits which is way below USB2's 480megabit max. Even something like Bluray is only 40-50megabits (or something along those lines).
Ahh, but in the UK (which is currently only being tested), the data is encoded with H.264 and is full 1080p - which is a helluva lot more work for the CPU than the US MPEG2 based HD.
eyeTV is not Multicore/ multiprocessor aware (at least for the decoding) - they would need to licence something like CoreAVC and use that for the BBC HD Trial to play back at full speed on current Intel iMacs
Comments
I noticed Quake 4 has a dual processor support option which pretty much means it is program specific.
Q4 was designed for a MP environment from the gitgo.
question though. i use an audio player named Cog, which lets me play SHN (Shorten) and FLAC files. these are lossless audio recordings, so playing them natively is far better for me than converting them to MP3/AAC to listen to them. i've got a Dual G5 2.0 GHz box, and whenever i play a SHN file, it will play static at the beginning of the file. someone suggested to me that if i disable my second processor, it will work (this has apparently been a known bug in the app for a long time). i tried it, and it did!
is there any app or extension or utility out there that will let me restrict a particular app to just one processor? the devs for Cog are not likely to fix this any time soon... i'm running 10.4.9 here, and am pretty well versed with UNIX as well, so even if i have to get down and dirty in the Terminal, i'm interested in hearing anyone's input on this.
"our software wont work with 2 cpus . . . lets tell the users to cripple their machines as the fix ! "
in seriousness though, i would think its unlikely . . . once the OS has the tasks it needs to do, the scheduler just divvies it up between the cores as it sees fit . . . i dont see how you could specify it to stick all to a single core.
surely that should be the application writer to change....
"our software wont work with 2 cpus . . . lets tell the users to cripple their machines as the fix ! "
in seriousness though, i would think its unlikely . . . once the OS has the tasks it needs to do, the scheduler just divvies it up between the cores as it sees fit . . . i dont see how you could specify it to stick all to a single core.
it's not crippling the machine, it's just directing all threads from a certain app at a single processor. and sorry to say this, but both Windows and *NIX systems allow for this to be done with ease. the Mac's Mach Kernel does not apparently, in my research. kinda sucky...
well, i guess it will be up to the app's author to fix, but who knows when that might happen.
Install the CHUD tools from the Developer Tools.
hwprefs cpu_count=1
and
hwprefs cpu_count=2
wrap it in an applescript like
LaunchCog.scpt
do shell script "hwprefs cpu_count=1"
tell app "Cog" to activate
and
QuitCog.scpt
do shell script "hwprefs cpu_count=2"
tell app "Cog" to quit
Over the air HD in the US tops out around 20 megabits which is way below USB2's 480megabit max. Even something like Bluray is only 40-50megabits (or something along those lines).
The only time i notice flickering is when my over the air signal is weak. you can check this by going to eyetv preferences, then going to device, and then going to signal. anything below, or approaching 50% is too low. i get flickering below a 56% strong signal usually.
Over the air HD in the US tops out around 20 megabits which is way below USB2's 480megabit max. Even something like Bluray is only 40-50megabits (or something along those lines).
Ahh, but in the UK (which is currently only being tested), the data is encoded with H.264 and is full 1080p - which is a helluva lot more work for the CPU than the US MPEG2 based HD.
eyeTV is not Multicore/ multiprocessor aware (at least for the decoding) - they would need to licence something like CoreAVC and use that for the BBC HD Trial to play back at full speed on current Intel iMacs
grrrr...
Oh well.. All I can do now is wait for someone to come up with ways to play it nicely on my Eyetv software.