Re: Guaranteeing processing speed...

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
13 Oct 1999 17:38:00 GMT


Followup to: <3804699D.A36D83A6@de.bosch.com>
By author: Thomas Strohm <Thomas.Strohm@de.bosch.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Hi!
>
> Suppose you have a process that needs a certain amount of CPU power.
> Think of an MPEG player showing a movie. If you start other
> processes absorbing a lot of CPU power you may run into a problem
> with your MPEG player. Common solutions like
>
> - killing the other processes
> - use a faster computer
> - playing around with process priorities
>

MPEG is a great example where this is not at all necessary. The MPEG
player should buffer up enough frames that it can react to changes in
the computing environment around it (change playback quality,
whatever...) The buffer acts, in many ways, like a time machine: it
makes it possible to notice a drop in performance before it needs to
drop frames as a result.

-hpa

-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!

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