Instruct Windows Apps To Use Specific Processor Cores Using Processor Affinity
0All our PC’s running factor is processor and we use various kinds of processors for various purposes. And now most of yours PC will be running by Multiple-Core processors. So here, we are going to introduce a new Techy term (may be some of us heard about it); Processor Affinity. This term is actually very useful and IT Professionals use these technique included in Microsoft Windows in order to put a layer of control along their Applications. And as said before, this tip only works if your PC is powered by a Multi-Core processor.
Processor Affinity is the capability of a Computer to instruct a specific process or programme to use a certain core of processor. By the default settings, all the programmes are allowed to use all the cores of your PC’s processor. So using this tip, you can direct a specific process (e.g. Notepad.exe) to use only a particular core of processor. Anyhow, let us have a look on benefits that you may get by enabling Processor Affinity Technique in your computer.
Enabling this technique will not make noticeable changes in most of the programmes in your PC. But if you’re running heavy programmes such as a strong anti-virus, a game with high level graphics, or surfing a website with large amount of content, this technique can help you. By the default mode, all these heavy softwares will be using all the cores in the PC. No excess performance will be observed and the total effect will be negative. But if you’re enabling Processor Affinity you can get rid of this negative effect. Through instructing a process to use only one core, the process can get the maximum power of that single or multiple (if there are more than 2) core of processor. Even though it may decrease the power and performance of remnant processes but can improve that of the heavy one.
Anyhow today we will show you to set Processor Affinity to a specific process and get maximum power of juice by clever selection of Processor cores.
Step One
Go to Windows Task Manager. You can either right click on taskbar and select Task Manager and select the Processes tab manually or use key combination Ctrl + Shift + Esc for heading to Processes section of your PC.
Step Two
Select the programme which you want to direct to use a specific Processor core. For example, we’re selecting Mozilla.exe from the Processor list. Right Click on the process and select ‘Set Affinity’
Step Three
If you haven’t tried this technique before, probably you’ll see a window like shown below which states that the process is using all the processor cores currently.
Step Four
In the next step you can uncheck the boxes of CPU’s available in your PC and let the programme to use particular CPU’s only.
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Conclusion: It’s finished. And you’ll see this technique very effective as we said before. But the problem is that you’ll have to set the option every time you start using the programme. We’ve shown screenshots of Windows 7 here but the technique will also work on Windows 8 and the procedure will be easier (Because, I was really impressed by Windows 8’s task management yesterday in my friend’s PC and I’m waiting for the official release). By the way, don’t forget to share your experience with applying this technique to your PC and how it resulted.
