"Ghosts" with patch 1.52 character rendering

[GodSpawn]

I said it was either getting too hot, or the temperature sensor isn't working properly. The temperature sensor is clearly hardware, and the "getting too hot" sure sounds like a hardware thing to me...

Bad contact between the heatsink and the processor? Faulty fan? Blocked vents? All hardware. Not software.

[MadDjinn]

Originally posted by GodSpawn
I said it was either getting too hot, or the temperature sensor isn't working properly. The temperature sensor is clearly hardware, and the "getting too hot" sure sounds like a hardware thing to me...

Bad contact between the heatsink and the processor? Faulty fan? Blocked vents? All hardware. Not software.

those could be a problem as well, but then he'd have these issues at all times, and his laptop would be shutting off constantly.

but it's SW that monitors and reacts to the sensor data. if that SW isn't reacting properly to heat increases (or isn't getting the time to process the data due to huge resource strains on the entire system) it could easily react that way.

[Aro]

It's a Centrino feature. When overheating, or using too much battery, or a bunch of things, the damn thing underclock itself.
My notebook has one. I don't like it

But like that...

[Urban Ranger]

It can be the game is eating up a lot of CPU cycles.

For Intel processors, every third cycle should be a rest one. Predictably, Windows violates that rule. Fortunately, most of the time a PC just sits there and waits. Though if you run a program that eats up a lot of CPU time it is easy to overheat the system, particuarly if it is a notebook (lack of sufficient ventilation).

[GodSpawn]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
For Intel processors, every third cycle should be a rest one. Predictably, Windows violates that rule.

I don't know where you got that from, but it's not true...

Why on earth would someone design a processor where you could only run it at 2/3 speed? And would actually require the operating system rather than the processor to somehow sleep for one out of every three cycles?

If such a requirement was stipulated in response to a heat problem, the designers would just underclock the processor instead. Requiring it to sleep one third of the time is not sensible!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GodSpawn
Why on earth would someone design a processor where you could only run it at 2/3 speed?

Huh? Suppose the CPU has 3 execution units and each one needs to be have a rest cycle every third instruction, the CPU still runs at full speed. This holds as long as a CPU has more than one execution unit.

Originally posted by GodSpawn
And would actually require the operating system rather than the processor to somehow sleep for one out of every three cycles?

Again, because the processor has more than one execution unit.

Originally posted by GodSpawn
If such a requirement was stipulated in response to a heat problem, the designers would just underclock the processor instead. Requiring it to sleep one third of the time is not sensible!

It's not the same thing. Think carefully.

[GodSpawn]

But it's simply untrue that the execution units NEED a rest cycle. In fact, the pipelined architecture is designed specifically to AVOID idle cycles! They may have to insert an idle cycle because no instructions are available for the execution unit to process, but the insertion of an idle cycle is certainly not a requirement. And it's certainly nothing to do with the operating system!

And when I asked why a system design would actually require the operating system rather than the processor to somehow sleep for one out of every three cycles, you said:

Again, because the processor has more than one execution unit.

Why? That doesn't seem to make sense...

Anyway, it's hardly a point worth worrying about.