[offtopic?] process cpu load % wrong?

Tuukka Toivonen (tuukkat@stekt.oulu.fi)
Thu, 16 Oct 1997 13:28:27 +0300 (EET DST)


My apologies if this is offtopic, but for me it looks like a kernel problem
(if you think otherwise, please reply my privately so i'll know better next
time).

I have pentium 120MHz, 24 megs memory. When I play MPEG Layer III sounds
(*.mp3) the CPU load is 25%-32% (according to top) when the system is idle.
This number shouldn't change even when the system isn't idle, should it?

When I run some normal programs that don't use too much hard disk, the mp3
player process stays at 25%-32%. But when I run some specific tasks, the
mp3 cpu load increases to 60% or even more!

These "specific tasks" are mainly DOSEMU (0.66). Also I found that some
program that used heavily disk caused this effect (probably it was "find"
on large directory tree). I have a feeling that this is caused by every
program that generates lot of IRQs.

----------------------
You can ignore the rest of this message as it is even little more offtopic
-- althought is it a little kernel sound driver issue. But I think this is
interesting...

I have two mp3 players, splay and mpg123. I have Gravis UltraSound MAX
sound card. I also have two drivers for it, the standard one which comes
with kernel and the driver from the Ultrasound Project.

With Ultrasound Project drivers, both players take about 30% CPU load.
With standard drivers, splay takes only 24%, but mpg123 takes about the
same 30% load. Why? Splay is threaded program, would this make the
difference?

| Tuukka Toivonen <tuukkat@stekt.oulu.fi>
| Homepage: http://stekt.oulu.fi/~tuukkat/
| Try also finger -l tuukkat@stekt.oulu.fi
| Studying information engineering at the University of Oulu
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