Question Multi-core CPUs

[Goth]

Do the various external graphic clients take advantage of multi-core CPUs?

 

[Urwumpe]

Do the various external graphic clients take advantage of multi-core CPUs?

Very likely not. Why should they? They have little to gain there, since most of their work is done on the GPU.

Also Orbiter is neither multi-core, nor even just thread-safe.

 

[Goth]

Yeah but having maybe orbiter on Core 1 and "the client DLL processing" on core 2 maybe well no ok as you said it's more GPU than anything else you're right.

---------- Post added at 01:16 ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 ----------

Instead, is Orbiter going to become multi-core anytime soon? Maybe next version?

 

[Urwumpe]

Instead, is Orbiter going to become multi-core anytime soon? Maybe next version?

Well, lets start with the only simple answer:

Orbiter could become multi-core. Making multi-core add-ons is also possible for Orbiter. Breaking add-ons that way could happen, but must not happen.

BUT: It is not easy or trivial. And for multi-core having any real advantage to single core, you need to think a lot. I am not sure how much martins is planning to invest there, but I know that he is pretty aware of the consequences of a multi-core transition.

 

[Enjo]

There is one big advantage: increase of stability of the physical engine, which could be refreshed more frequently than the graphical one then. Measurable effect - possibility of greater time compression and increased stability in the atmosphere under more than 10x TACC. This would require that not every frame is passed to the graphical engine and that a double or even triple buffer of physical engine's "snapshots" is kept to avoid race conditions with the graphical engine. All can be done on the design level, with the addons being agnostic about it.

 

[thepenguin]

There is one big advantage: increase of stability of the physical engine, which could be refreshed more frequently than the graphical one then. Measurable effect - possibility of greater time compression and increased stability in the atmosphere under more than 10x TACC. This would require that not every frame is passed to the graphical engine and that a double or even triple buffer of physical engine's "snapshots" is kept to avoid race conditions with the graphical engine. All can be done on the design level, with the addons being agnostic about it.

That sounds like a great idea! Anyway, most new CPUs have multiple cores, and if somebody doesn't, it won't hurt them any.

I think that the increased stability that this would grant during flights would be awesome to have!