Resource Manager Bug: CPU Usage

[Sam86]

The task jumped to 365 for a brief moment, around <0.5 seconds was way to fast to screenshot it.

And then to 3,565 for a brief moment ( roughly, 3,5xx anyway).

I had it open for a while, was testing a program before and forgot to close it from the second screen. I noticed this happen twice and not since.

CPU: Core2Duo E6600

Anyone heard of this issue ?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Don't worry about it. You probably saw a program opening or something.

 

[Sam86]

I'm obviously not in a panic that it overloaded my CPU or anything...

Just it screws up the CPU Average, as you may have noticed it saying over 200 average CPU.

 

[logicearth]

Maybe it is not screwing up the "CPU Average" and maybe over 200 is the correct average...unless you know something we don't? Just saying... Nothing is free on a computer, every flick of the mouse incurs CPU time, just watching Resource Monitor itself requires CPU time.

 

[Sam86]

Maybe it is not screwing up the "CPU Average" and maybe over 200 is the correct average...unless you know something we don't? Just saying... Nothing is free on a computer, every flick of the mouse incurs CPU time, just watching Resource Monitor itself requires CPU time.

Not sure what to make of this post.

I would call you a fool or something, but given your forum title I fear you must have some knowledge so I shall hold off on the insults...

But how does a CPU get 205% average, when I have never seen it go over 100% (100%). One would imagine it follows the general rule that 100% is complete, whole, finished, impossible to exceed.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Where does it show 205%?

 

[logicearth]

Well maybe you should look at what "Average CPU" means.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749226%28WS.10%29.aspx

The average CPU load over the last 60 seconds resulting from the application instance, expressed as a percentage of the CPU's total capacity.

60 seconds btw, is a long time to a computer that works in microseconds.

 

[Dwarf]

It certainly isn't normal, but whether it is a bug or not I'm not sure. I noticed that the file taking the resources was daorigins.exe, so do you play or have Dragon Age: Origins installed?

 

[Sam86]

Where does it show 205%?

In the screenshot I attached

@Logicearth you say maybe 205 is the correct value? Then you quoted a help file saying CPU Average is the average CPU usage over a 60 second period. How can 205 be an average % of the CPU Capacity. This means that the CPU Capacity really did jump to over 3000% for a fraction of a second? wow, maybe I should sell my CPU to the NSA? Just to explain, to get 205% average, when a process normally runs at 60-90 over 60 seconds (assuming what? 5 records per second. I would think at least 10, but be safe at 5) 60x5 = 300 records of cpu usage per minute. So my maths suck, but to get an average of 205 when it should be about 70 means one or two of these 300 records must have jumped to a fairly high number (hmm, like 3000?).

So, 205% average CPU usage is a bug surly, when the max CPU usage is generally 100% correct ? So how can CPU usage jump to 3000+ for a fraction of a second, then back down to 80(the real value) without being a bug. Forgive me if my knowledge of Computer Science is failing here, but a CPU cannot magically output 3000+% capacity.

I really am sorry for acting like a douche, but these people with "Seven Pro" and "Seven Guru" makes me think I am the one in the wrong yet I fail to see how. I've been known to confuse people when I explain things, so I really hope this is the case. If not either myself or you are being exceptionally moronic (@Logicearth).

- Back to the question at hand:

It certainly isn't normal, but whether it is a bug or not I'm not sure. I noticed that the file taking the resources was daorigins.exe, so do you play or have Dragon Age: Origins installed?

Yea I'm not doubting where the CPU Usage is going, I was playing dragon age at that time, and every action ingame started to pause which is why I loaded Resource Manager and noticed this bug. I should comment I found the issue of why DA:O was lagging, which is CPU overheating slightly over prolonged play. Maybe this is the cause of my Resource Monitor bug, or not bug depending if I am being moronic or not.

 

[logicearth]

@Sam86, I guess it was not clear...but did you calculate 60 seconds into your math? For a computer 60 seconds is a very long time, a very long time. 1 microsecond is equivalent to 1 MHz, there is 60000000 microseconds for ever 60 seconds.

You should also note your CPU is throttling itself up and down depending on load. So it can in fact "magically" increase capacity. The blue line represents this throttling.

 

[Sam86]

Not sure how me not being clear led you to post

"Maybe 205% CPU average CPU usage is not a bug"
"Maybe you should look up how the CPU average is calculated"

Those 2 posts where just idiotic no matter how unclear I was or can be, the screenshot clearly shows 205% usage, and by your own information that is pretty much impossible (Given the information provided).

Also, may I add that my Resource Monitor is currently tracking around 85 items. Now, I honestly have no idea how many times it takes samples from CPU Usage to make the average this is why I suggest 5 per second, and not 1 per Microsecond as you seemed to have said:

85 x 600000 = 51000000
So thats:
51000000 per second, that is how many times it would have to record CPU usage samples to calculate the average.
3060000000 per minute.

I doubt Resource monitor tracks and records CPU usage that often. I used 5 as a rough guess. 5 per second seems a logical number to record CPU usage amounts for obtaining an average.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all
Not getting involved in a game of "Posting Tennis" here except to say than nowhere in the known universe BY DEFINITION can an AVERAGE exceed 100%.

Either the program recording the data is wrong or you are entering the realms of "Quantum Mechanics" where different considerations apply.

What you can say is that for a small percentage of the time the PEAK usage is several times greater than the AVERAGE usage.

You can even say that the MEAN usage over a smaller period of time within the measured interval is greater than the Average usage.

Now if you go down to "Vanishingly small periods of time" what is "The average".

Be careful before you start "Mathematical Threads" -- you won't know where it ends up and that's BEFORE we get involved in "Moduluar Conjecture of Elliptic Curves" or the "Riemmann's Hypothesis" -- Still a MILLION DOLLARS available if you can solve it.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20040508233713data_trunc_sys.shtml

Have fun and Good Luck in solving it.

BTW those Speed (sorry 'ER we have to call them now "Safety" but they are only in fact "Cash Cow") cameras measuring your Average speed on some European Motorways -- will you get fined for exceeding the limit if you break the limit for short periods - but stay within the average between the measuring points. Over to you guys.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Sam86]

Thanks for clearing that up

So I was right, I'm not crazy and I'll hold back from flaming the people who had a short buss moment.
So, back to the original matter at hand:

Bug in resource monitor?

btw we have those camera's here

 

[Shomer]

This is not a problem with your computer. This is a problem in the Dragon Age Origins code that is causing a memory leak. Until there's an official patch from Bioware to address this problem, the only thing that seems to help is to Alt/Tab out of DA, go into your task manager, click the processes tab and look for DAorigins.exe. Right click on it and select "set affinity".. Make sure only CPU 0 has a checked box..

This forces the game to only run on 1 processor.. You can most likely still use max settings for the game.
You may get a little more chop or tearing, but it probably beats repeated crashing and 5 min load times between areas.
*note: Obviously this only works if you have a multicore processor.

 

[Sam86]

I wasn't suffering repeated crashes or 5minute load times.

Memory leak may have been the reason for the game to get abit choppy after a few hours. Not sure where a memory leak can cause Resource Monitor to collect spiked readings.

I made this thread to see if anyone else had noticed this issue. I have only ever noticed it once, and that was just because I happened to be looking at the right time.

Obviously this may have been an issue with my installation but so far all I've had is replies debating if this is a bug or if I have a super computer capable of running at 3600% cpu usage for brief moments.

 

[Shomer]

well, all im saying is that DAO is causing most peoples CPUs to run at 100% usage. I am not crashing out of the game but my load times increase the longer I am in game. Quite a few people are crashing however, and as i said, the CPU usage is 100%. If you really are concerned about your system, watch for the same issue, but without running DAO, run Oblivion or FO3 and see what the results are.