System Idle Process eating CPU time

Bungus

Archont of Cootertown
Joined
Sep 8, 2004
Messages
1,165
Civ3 has been running slow lately, and although it could be alot of thing, when checking out my Processes with Windows Tank Manager I noticed the system idle processs takes alot of the CPU usage. Like 40-90% (Windows 2000 pro). Looking at it, I guess that it only uses whatever is left over from anything else running (when other programs are running, it drops. Stays around 40% with civ3 running). But I wanted to be sure, to get rid of one less variable. If that is how it functions, why doesn't civ3 use 99% of the CPU and System idle process <1%? Civ3 could use the extra processing power, its taking several minutes a turn early on.
 
The System Idle proccess is esentially just how much of your cpu is not being used. Because of the way that I/O works, CPUs are actually underused and this will be quite high. It is not a problem.
 
Bungus said:
Why doesn't civ3 use 99% of the CPU and System idle process <1%? Civ3 could use the extra processing power, its taking several minutes a turn early on.
I'm still wondering about that one.
 
As Meleager said, the way I/O works, you will rarely see a program that does any output (either to a file, or to the screen) peg your CPU usage. ;)

FWIW, I use a system monitor that has *almost* instantaneous monitoring (IIRC, I have it set to update every 250 milliseconds), and Civ3 rarely goes over about 40% - there are always ongoing screen updates, sound updates, autosaves being written, etc.
 
Wow padma, your computer sounds pretty fast. My tower is made out of bronze. I don't think iron was around yet when they built it.
Thanks for the info guys
 
Oh! Another question. I windows 2000 pro, and when I right click on a process in the processes tab in the task manager, one of the options that comes up is "Set Priority". If I set civ3's priority to high or realtime, will it run faster? Or cause problems?
 
System idle process is showing how free your processor is.

Oh! Another question. I windows 2000 pro, and when I right click on a process in the processes tab in the task manager, one of the options that comes up is "Set Priority". If I set civ3's priority to high or realtime, will it run faster? Or cause problems?

That only applies when you have mulitiple programs running that need access to the processor. For example, on my old computer if I was running something fairly resource-heavy like 3DS Max and trying to watch a movie at the same time, the video would seem to stutter or lag every now and then when Max was eating the CPU cycles. Setting WMP to high priority would let it run smoothly, since it gave it first shot at the CPU.

If you want best performance in a single app (Civ or whatever), you need to be sure that no other programs are running. You shouldn't need to change the priority.
 
There is a big difference between "programs" and "proccesses". You will never get only one proccess running at the same time. I have fiddled with priority before and have never noticed a difference.
 
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