(01-07-2013, 05:57 AM)dEhiN Wrote: So in summary, Dolphin will potentially utilize all 6 cores to run its 3 major threads (+ any minor threads) but not necessarily simultaneously?
Yes when we're talking just about the major threads; the minor threads (there are a lot, actually) could collectively spread to all of the available cores, they just won't amount to a whole lot of processing. Nothing (aside from OS scheduling or Lock Threads to Cores) prevents the 3 major threads from jumping to all of your system's cores. On quad-core+ systems, the threads just can't be on all of them simultaneously, e.g. the 3 major threads can't be on all six cores at the same time in your case. If your system only has three cores, it is possible to have Dolphin use all the cores on your system, of course
(01-07-2013, 05:57 AM)dEhiN Wrote: Does anyone know if the Lock Threads to Cores option gives a significant speed boost or decrease?
This is usually useful for laptops that need to Turbo Boost. Desktops shouldn't really see any performance increase (or decrease?).
(01-07-2013, 05:57 AM)dEhiN Wrote: I don't rely on Windows Task Manager, but run a Win7 gagdet that reports how many cores are working, at what percentage, and the overall cpu percentage. I did notice with the Lock Threads option that 2 cores were steadily reporting 100% usage with Dolphin running a game. When the Lock Threads option is not checked, all the cores fluctuate from about 10-25% (roughly from what I remember). In both cases though the overall cpu usage was about the same (don't remember the percentage amount now).
I'm willing to bet that whatever tool you're using to monitor your CPU usage, it probably gets its info from the same source that Windows Task Manager would (the Windows kernel), so the results should roughly look the same (might vary depending on how it presents that data). Anyway, the overall CPU usage should remain the same with Lock Threads to Cores on and off, it's just a matter of having the threads stay on specific cores as opposed to jumping all over the place.