This is probably a stupid question, but I wanted to pose it in case anyone knew. My understanding of pro-sumer Apple Apps in their latest version take advantage of NSObject in Objective-C 2.0, which is inhearently multithreaded. This should allow the OS to dynamically allocate processes to different cores, even when the applications aren't optimized for them. However, I would assume that all Apple apps are developed to take advantage of multi-core setups since almost all models are dual core and higher.
I recently purchased an 8 core Mac Pro, for Xcode development and HD movie editing (strange combo, I know). When I watch the CPU meter in Activity Monitor while rendering a Final Cut Express movie, it maxes out at 50% CPU usage. Just for fun, I checked iDVD and it maxed out at 20% when rendering a movie. Xcode, however, maxes out at 100%.
I bought the computer so that I could take advantage of all that CPU horsepower and crank out some short movie clips fairly quickly. I am confused as to why it's not maxing out when rendering. Are these applications not optimized for all of those cores yet? Does Final Cut Express have this limitation while Final Cut Pro does not?
I recently purchased an 8 core Mac Pro, for Xcode development and HD movie editing (strange combo, I know). When I watch the CPU meter in Activity Monitor while rendering a Final Cut Express movie, it maxes out at 50% CPU usage. Just for fun, I checked iDVD and it maxed out at 20% when rendering a movie. Xcode, however, maxes out at 100%.
I bought the computer so that I could take advantage of all that CPU horsepower and crank out some short movie clips fairly quickly. I am confused as to why it's not maxing out when rendering. Are these applications not optimized for all of those cores yet? Does Final Cut Express have this limitation while Final Cut Pro does not?