Of course a Dual Core is faster, and if you need validation to ask Mrs. Santa for a New Computer, then your answer is yes “You have to have it.”
But unfortunately, the timer issue is a software operating system issue, and not hardware. I don’t think you can isolate the AutoCAD application to use only one processor would go against the foundation of the hardware architecture.
The fundamental issue if the time is based on the OS. The operating system can still only do one process at a time. A dual core only gives the OS to double the process speed because it duals out the work load to two processors in stead on just one. The OS was not designed to be a PLC, there fore there was no separate timer control built into the OS. Although it looks like things are running at the same time, it is only an illusion, much like to see in an old movie projector, The projector like the OS simply flashes still pictures in your eyes so fast that they seem to be animated. But in reality they are just single pictures or single processors. So if we could speed our brains up to the speed of the computer we would see one process at a time, like we would see one image at a time in the old movie projectors.
The timer is inaccurate because, depending on how many processes are running will determine when the timer process will run. It isn’t, but if the timer process was the only thing running then you could say it is accurate, but if there are 50-60 processes running the timer process runs every 61 times.
Carl Boudreau
Senior Developer
VB.Net,
VB, ASP.net
VB, VBA
Originally Posted by innova  Gentlemen, I am trying to port my dos based app to a VBA app run within Autocad and I am currently up against the timer issue. Would the new dual core processors help out here? One core devoted to the stepper control thread and the other left to take care of Windows needs? I would hate to run out and buy one only to find out it doesn't work that way. Thanks |