How is this possible: QuickTime on iBG4 - 152% CPU Usage?

[slooksterPSV]

I was watching a movie, Doom, and it came across some parts and slowed down majorly. I ran Terminal and got into top and it showed that my CPU usage was 512% for QuickTime. I did a rewind to the part where it slowed down and was able to take a snapshot for 152%. Why/how does this happen and what is happening???

SCREENSHOT:

 

[G99]

Holy Crap.
I assume this was on the iBook? How big was the file?
Running an HD movie on Quicktime can go up to 48%, for me, but 152% is crazy.
Maybe the framerate and resolution was too high for your mac to handle.
I don't think there's any problem, though, as even 48% is high.

 

[yellow]

Does the Activity Monitor show the same CPU%?

AFAIK, technically without multiple processors/cores, this isn't possible and is likely to simply be a bug in how top is reporting the process' CPU usage.

 

[iGary]

Does the Activity Monitor show the same CPU%?

AFAIK, technically without multiple processors/cores, this isn't possible and is likely to simply be a bug in how top is reporting the process' CPU usage.

I know the command line for making Terminal transparent, but what about geeen with black background?

 

[yellow]

Just change your prefs in Terminal.app. Personally all my xterms have always been cyan on a black background. It's the easiest for me to read (scrolling, especially) text in.

Specifically, in the Window Settings of Terminal.app, then Color.

 

[iGary]

Just change your prefs in Terminal.app. Personally all my xterms have always been cyan on a black background. It's the easiest for me to read (scrolling, especially) text in.

Specifically, in the Window Settings of Terminal.app, then Color.

Ah, gracias. My folding is so much prettier now.

 

[yellow]

It's the easiest for me to read (scrolling, especially) text in.

Plus it looks cooler..

 

[slooksterPSV]

Its about 1 GB Exact, I played the Doom DVD and it plays just fine on that part. - I'm going to try with activity monitor now.

 

[slooksterPSV]

Read it and weep:


That's right 202.50%

 

[yellow]

It's still not possible to use more than 100% of a single CPU. I don't care what it says. Maybe someone else can offer an explanation.

 

[slooksterPSV]

It's still not possible to use more than 100% of a single CPU. I don't care what it says. Maybe someone else can offer an explanation.

Over usage of the CPU combining previous results for Quicktime being used resulting in the % that Activity monitor gave me, so like this:
Cycle 1 = 99.5
Cycle 2 = 99.5
Cycle 3 = 6.5
Cycle 4 = Addup previous cycles 99.5+99.5 = 199.0 + 6.5 = 205.5
Cycle 5 = Refresh Activity Monitor + get results from Cycle 4

 

[ChrisA]

I was watching a movie, Doom, and it came across some parts and slowed down majorly. I ran Terminal and got into top and it showed that my CPU usage was 512% for QuickTime. I did a rewind to the part where it slowed down and was able to take a snapshot for 152%. Why/how does this happen and what is happening???

SCREENSHOT:

Top does this all the time. If you have 2 CPUs the maxium is 200%. With four CPUs (this Xeon powered Linux sytem I'm typing one has four) you can get up to 400% if each CPU is 100% utilized. As I type this I've got top showing a total just over 200%

 

[slooksterPSV]

Top does this all the time. If you have 2 CPUs the maxium is 200%. With four CPUs (this Xeon powered Linux sytem I'm typing one has four) you can get up to 400% if each CPU is 100% utilized. As I type this I've got top showing a total just over 200%

Uh... Chris, I'm on an iBook G4 with PPC G4 one processor

 

[Makosuke]

Well, that's an interesting quirk in the way top gets data (doesn't activity monitor just pull data from top, too?). I guess since all my recent macs have been dual processor I've never maxed it out enough to cause enough slowdown in Top to see this.