Creating threads.

3DModelerMan · Post by **3DModelerMan** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:29 pm

What happens when you try to create a thread on a single core? Does it create a fake thread? Or does it return an error? I don't have a single core, so I can't tell.

Bate · Post by **Bate** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:51 pm

You can always create multiple threads, no matter which cpu you have.
The OS manages the threads itself, having multiple cores is just a bonus so each thread is likely to be executed on a different core.

CuteAlien · Post by **CuteAlien** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:23 pm

Each thread is run for very short time. Then the current processor state is saved somewhere and the processor state of another thread is loaded (called a context switch) and then the next thread runs a very short time. So when each thread is using up it's whole slice of time then for x threads each of them will only have 1/x of the available processor time (minus some minor additional time needed for the context switch). But threads can also give up their time earlier, for example with sleep(), if they have nothing to do.