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CPU USAGE PROBLEM!!!!

les

les

Associate
Joined
12 Jul 2008
Posts
47
Hi again

When I am not playing counter-strike 1.6, my CPU usage is like 1%. This computer can definetly handle any game you can throw at it, but for some reason, when I open counter strike, it skyrockets to 50%!! That's ridiculous, knowing that this game is like 10 years old and my computer used to run it at like 4% cpu usage.


SPECS

OS: Windows XP Professional SP3
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+, 3.01 GHzVideo:
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT/GTO (1280x1024x32bpp 75Hz)
Memory: 2GBCorsair XMS 2048MB
HD SpaceFree: 1050.02 GB/1164.27 GB
PSU jeantech 1000 W
Mainboard Vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Mainboard Name: M3A32-MVP DELUXE


Now ive tried a few things ive done a scan with Ad-aware pro got rid of all the crap it found , got rid of Norton Antivirus as i told it was that, that may be causing the problem deleted a few things that i didnt need on my machine ive also been told that my "PSU" isnt powerful enough but the problem is still there. I load counter-strike or any other games my CPU usage rockets, ive tried setting counter-strike to run on 1 core but still the same problem setting it to both same problem PLEASE HELP..

Here is a pic of the usage it uses when ive loaded up cs

http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuusagehistoryhq8.jpg


Any help would be much appricated guys . as i spent a lot of money upgrading my rig , This problem may be normal and ok as i have never used a dual core!
 
It might be nearly 9 years old, but it's unrealistic to expect your computer to be running at 4% when it loads that game. 50% is pretty standard sounding, and unless you're seeing performance issues (which with that hardware you really shouldn't) how many CPU cycles it's taking up doesn't really matter too much.

And if anything, your PSU is too powerful, there's no way you need 1kW to run that rig.
 
It's perfectly normal as said...

It's fully utilizing a single core so on your dual core it's 50% of total CPU usage. It's the same as with every dual core CPU.
 
The only reason I can thing of that would allow your old computer to run the game at 4% cpu load, would be that the graphics card was so slow, the CPU ended up idling while waiting for the graphics to render.

If the graphics card and cpu are even reasonalby matched most older style games will max out a single cpu core, as they run the rendering loop constantly. IE as soon as 1 frame is rendered it moves on to the next.

Other games even run in a loop waiting for keyboard input. Any time the is running a near endless loop of code, it will take 100% of 1 core (50% of a dual core), unless the loop is coded with NOP (no operation) instructions which the cpu will consider as "idle").

Some games, you can actually affect the CPU load, by enabling the Vsync, as this caps the framerate to 60, depending on the code, as soon as the framerate hits 60, it waits, and during that pause the cpu goes idle. Other games just continue looping trying to generate frames.

World of warcraft for example, which is partially threaded (makes modest use of multicores) uses a lot more CPU time when vsync is disabled.

Anyway, 50% is perfectly normal for a reasonably well balanced CPU/GPU combination. Nothing to worry about.
 
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