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List of software that takes advantage of dual processors on Mac Pro?

H

hakr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 18, 2009
226
0
Western shore, Chesapeake Bay. Maryland
Hope this isn't a silly question...I figure some graphics and sound programs take advantage of a computer with two CPU's...but I'm wondering if there is a list of programs that have been "enhanced" to take advantage of a Mac Pro.
 
multiple core aware software

Maya 2008 uses all my 4 processors on my quad G5, I'm sure it uses all 8 cores on a mac pro as maya has the render option to "use all available cpu's" ;-)
 
quote

Multiprocessor

"For those of you out there with multiprocessor Macs you no longer need to worry if a program is “multi-processor aware”. OS X takes advantage of multiprocessors at the level of the OS so every application you run can benefit from multi-processors."

i guess that kind of answers the question if you are running multiple apps/tasks.
 
deze said:
Multiprocessor

"For those of you out there with multiprocessor Macs you no longer need to worry if a program is “multi-processor aware”. OS X takes advantage of multiprocessors at the level of the OS so every application you run can benefit from multi-processors."

i guess that kind of answers the question if you are running multiple apps/tasks.
Click to expand...

Where's this from, Snow Leopard? Not Leopard, because it doesn't.
 
Fact or Fiction? You decide ... personally

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/multicore.html

"Today’s Mac computers offer astounding performance with up to eight cores of processing power. How do you take full advantage? Simple — with Leopard. A rearchitected system, finely tuned key applications, and powerful new tools for developers make Leopard the perfect OS for your multicore Mac.

Apple engineers have updated several applications in Leopard — including Mail, Address Book, and Font Utility — to be fully multicore ready. Each of these apps breaks up processor-intensive actions into a series of more manageable steps that execute one by one on single-CPU computers and in parallel on newer, multicore systems. Cocoa uses the same technology to speed up Spotlight searches and Dictionary lookups."
Click to expand...

You did ask about "dual processors" but i figured this fits the bill too thus ...
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned Cinema4D yet.

p.s. Is it Apple BS? You decide ... I've grown rather tired of figuring that out. These days, I just let the mac do the talking and walking, praying hard that they all work as wonderfully reliably as the early good o' days. ;) Can't stand in the way of advancements but something got to give!

p.p.s. Not sure if you are aware, Chess is 64-bit but they didn't mention if it is multicore/mutiCPU aware though. hehee.
 
A far far shorter list would be software that doesn't take advantage of multiple cores.

Even the old game Halo (1.5.2 from 2003) takes advantage of both my cores.
 
This is really interesting...I'm just waiting for the anticipated "new models" to be announced by Apple before buying either the "hottest" new iMac or a Mac Pro. But without seeing an extensive list of software I might use that really takes advantage of the Pro's processing abilities, it's a hard decision to justify.
 
Just go buy an old 400MHz G4 then. It only has 1 core so you won't need to worry about software not using all the machine's abilities. :rolleyes:
 
Thats right, the OS itself load levels by assigning individual tasks to a different processor when possible.
 
Native Instruments as a plugin in Logic seem to only use one core. I'm pretty sure it's an NI issue and not an Apple issue, and hopefully they'll have newer versions that use all cores.

It's annoying because I'll see the first two cores barely registering using logic, then five cores doing absolutely nothing, then the 8th core spiking into the 70s.
 
A fair chunk of  apps will use up to two cores. That is to say, I've seen Final Cut Pro use up to that many on its own. I think Motion and Logic will (though only in rare circumstances) use more if they need to. They're newer and 64-bit, though, I think, as opposed to Final Cut which is not and can't dump as much in RAM. I've also seen photoshop use up to two, but not more - possibly I haven't been pushing it hard enough, but it has to page out all the time because it's also only 32 bit. If only I could open the 4.15GB photo in RAM...
 
What can you do in Logic that will require all of that power, just out of curiosity? I know it's new enough that it's got the full weight of all of 's software tech, but sound is very lightweight compared to video. Everything I know of sound is by the way of learning it for video, so what could one do that would actually use all of those cores?
 
TheStrudel said:
What can you do in Logic that will require all of that power, just out of curiosity? I know it's new enough that it's got the full weight of all of 's software tech, but sound is very lightweight compared to video. Everything I know of sound is by the way of learning it for video, so what could one do that would actually use all of those cores?
Click to expand...
Dozens of tracks with high-sophisticated reverb algorithms, effects, virtual analog software snythesizers, physical modelling synthesizers, sample players, etc... etc... Many people are buying additional professional DSP cards to disburden their CPU cores.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Where's this from, Snow Leopard? Not Leopard, because it doesn't.
Click to expand...

:confused:

Sure it does.

The OS supports multiple threads, and will execute them on whatever processing core is free. This has been true since Mac OS X 10.0. All an application has to do is use multiple threads and the OS will take care of the rest. Snow Leopard won't change this, it will just make it easier to write applications that run tasks that can be split off into their own threads to be executed by whatever CPU or GPU is handy.

Apple's little blurb is slightly misleading in that the OS won't magically make applications multithreaded - but how many apps do you run that aren't?

Your computer probably has dozens, if not hundreds, of threads running right now. If your n-core computer has (n - 1) threads running at 100%, you've just seen an advantage over a system with fewer processing cores.

...assuming that the hypothetical system's fewer processors aren't sufficiently faster enough that it doesn't matter. I run some Linux servers at work, and the single-CPU 3GHz P4 boxes are faster than the dual-CPU 733MHz PIII boxes, regardless of the number of threads.


I'm quite sure I won't be using all the cores of a new Mac Pro immediately, but I felt that way about my (dual) G5 when it was new, too. I grew into it. I'm especially looking forward to maintaining system performance as Time Machine runs - it happily uses both CPUs to the detriment of what I might be doing at the time.
 
Tallest Skil said:
HandBrake will use all eight cores.

I expect Logic Studio and Final Cut Studio to, but I'm not certain.
Click to expand...

Yup, HandBrake does, and I think Logic Studio Pro does too. I can tell you that as far as Final Cut Studio (2) is concerned, only Compressor (using QMaster) uses as many cores as you assign to it.
 
well... within FCP, the timeline is reliant on the QT framework which is multi-core aware. however, it is really dependent on the codec used. ProRes is optimized for multi-core machines.
 
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