How many cores does xara uses? Also it claims that it uses multiprocessing which I do not believe it does.
Clarify me on this Xara.
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How many cores does xara uses? Also it claims that it uses multiprocessing which I do not believe it does.
Clarify me on this Xara.
You can investigte this yourself Behzad, but I doubt Xara will ever really need to break into a sweat re this.
https://www.google.com/search?client...HB8gLrmKDIDQ16
Moved to the Dear Xara forum.
Acorn
Thanks Egg. From my analysis, processing a complex 40 page website, it seems only one core is being fully utilized. So the answer is no, it does not use multi cores. Also Upgrading to SSD and memory did not improve overall performance with Xara either. I believe all the heavy work is done only with the central processor.
sorry Behzad you cannot draw that conclusionQuote:
Originally Posted by behzad
multicore capability is simply that... and the capability is managed by the operating system; xara designer cannot just stamp it's foot and insist on using resources, even if nothing else is, if windows is not inclined to release them
and how windows organises resources is as much a function of your setup as it is absolute
there are ways to tweak this, but that is very geekish, and may not be worth the effort, and will in any case not be a one-set-of-tweaks-fits-all senario
I ran a test and here is a screen shot of the resources manager [split so it is readable under TG size limit]
Attachment 129282
ignore 'not reponding' that just means the program itself is too busy to be accessed in itself - you can see 6 cores are being used and the average usage is 4.4
the operation was a 10 pass photographic trace of an image 4128 by 3098 pixels which took about 5mins - back in the day it would have taken forever or just failed
core usage remained at 6, but the average usage maxed out at 6.24
I have an amd processor with 8 physical cores [16 virtual]
it is also worth bearing in mind that what is a complex operation to the computer may not equate to what a human thinks is complex
here is a [smaller] version of the photograph:
Attachment 129283
beatrice the bee has, this last week, been nosing a lot around our back conservatory and had got 'buried' in a pile of plasic bags [recycling for the use of] - maybe looking for a new nesting place; she was buzzing like crazy for ages so eventually I fished her out and she stayed on my hand resting long enough for me to get some single-handed photos
note for those thinking of doing this at home: be very careful - whilst [european] bumble bees are usually safe to cup in your hand if you need to move them, take care not to exert any pressure, they can sting, and they retract the sting so they can do it again like wasps, though fortunately no where near as short of fuse :)
Nice. Thanks. Also your a brave soul for letting a bee near you.
the one thing you should not do, is try to bat them with your hand and that includes wasps, just gets them agitated ;)
A few wasps dug a few circle (perfect circles) into the wood on our house Plaque made of wood. I waited until fall when they left and filled the holes with wood filler. I hope they do not come back. I was scared of them everytime I had to go out of the house.
oops it turns out I was misinterpreting the figures -6 does not mean 6 cores :o - it means 6 is the % of current CPU consumption which is something different, sorry; which means that it does not need very much core usage at all, which given a modern hi-spec computer is fair enough; windows is 'paging' the CPU usage just as it does with memory - maybe a better way of looking at it is that just like on a 32bit OS where any memory above a certain level cannot be accessed [2.5/3GB], a program has to be multi-core processor compatible to enable it to access this 'CPU paging'; it does not mean it uses more than one core as such, just that it can be swapped in and out of cores rather than having to wait
I just would not worry about it
one thing for sure , its a whole load faster than it used to be, but the computer is better too of course
....
you have nasty wasps in north america and we are not just talking about white anglo saxon...whatevers ;)
;))
I think there's some problems with the analysis in this thread.
For a program to be able to utilise multiple cores it must be written to utilise multiple concurrent threads of execution that can run separately on different cores.
Often software can use one thread of execution for handling the display and another for the main processing tasks.
To properly handle concurrent execution (and properly use multiple cores) takes a lot of extra effort and planning - when things run concurrently data can be access simultaneously and overwritten, so it has to be protected from multiple access by some form of locking mechanism. Software not written to enable parallel execution can never execute on multiple cores effectively.
A lot of modern software utilises the multiple cores present in some graphics cards.
Testing a trace function is unlikely to be representative of the multi-processing capabilities of Xara in other respect (though it may be if it is single-threaded).
My understanding is that Xara is still essentially a single-threaded system unable to effectively use multiple cores. Does this make multiple cores pointless? No because it allows your machine to be responsive even if one or more cores is fully utilized.
When I used to test multi-threaded database software on multi-processor machines the goal was to employ every single processor entirely and keep those discs as occupied as possible during intensive benchmarking.
In any event none of this matters. Xara understands the issues and users can't change anything.
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Bees - I am always happy to see bumble bees - don't be afraid of them and let them be. They won't bother you if you don't bother them. It's a pleasure to see them.
@pauland, nicely put.
@All, JavaScript is essentially single-threaded. In browsers you could invoke something akin to https://github.com/keithwhor/multithread.js if your web application required it.
The XDAs are a different beast but even here there is some JavaScript being run; Smartshapes come to mind.
So where are the Xara bottlenecks: loading, Lines gallery, Exporting & Publishing? Large numbers of Pages and large numbers of Repeating Objects.
A 999-step Blend itself blended in 999 steps to another 999-step Blend takes 4 seconds on my machine. All 6 cores kick in. One works the display and the others whatever.
I can drag down my XDA fairly easily. If doesn't make me clever or Xara dumb. Overall, it strikes me that Xara needs to improve its handling of internal collection of objects, pointer and the like.
It admitted defeat when it removed the Find capability for the Design gallery.
Unless Xara steps up and addresses these concerns with quantitative detail, further discussion will get not very far.
Acorn
P.S. Just how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? If it were virtualised and running quantum, I guess at least a googol before all that information is smeared across a black hole's surface.
you are the expert on CPU stuff Paul, more than me certainly... thanks
we have always had bumble bees here, we are lucky; they are essential for pollination and, well, cute
this time of year, here, beatrice is almost certainly a queen bee looking for a nesting place - it is not of course possible to say every visit was the same bee, but the behaviour was always the same, rummage in the mess that is one side of our rear conservatory... no plants in this conservatory bar one cactus and one aloe vera, both ignored; and bees can't nest in plastic... we have already found three dead ones this year :(