Load average and CPU hogs in realtime scheduling

Olaf Titz (olaf@bigred.inka.de)
Sun, 16 Nov 1997 13:26:32 +0100


MAME (arcade machine emulator) is cool. :-) In order to let it run
smoothly, I run it in SCHED_FIFO (or was ist _RR?) mode (the svgalib
version). This program seems to take 100% of the CPU time and no other
process on the machine gets to run, not surprisingly.

What does surprise me, however: when I exit MAME and let my machine
resume normal operation, it displays a load average of perhaps 15 or
20, depending on how long MAME ran, despite no processes in R or D
state. The load drops quickly to the usual "0+noise".

Looks like there is something slightly wrong with load average
computation.

olaf