Some at least of you will be aware of the Ashampoo company which makes an increasing range of low-cost packages, a number of which I have bought and use regularly. I received an ad a few days ago for a new one called Core Tuner, claiming that it could boost usage of multiple cores. I downloaded the trial version for my Quad, and created a profile (so far the only one) for VS X2, boosting its usage to High.
I then tried it out on a number of high definition projects, which can be demanding of both time and computer resources. In the past, with Windows Task Manager operational, it was clear the VS was using mainly one of the four cores of my Quad 6600 processor (Core 3) and depending on the action, also a lot of Core 4, with cores 1 and 2 showing low usage rates.
One of the things I regularly do is edit and output HDV/mpeg-2 projects. The original video is filmed in transport stream mpeg-2 but is converted on capture to program stream. To send it back to the camera, it needs to be converted back to transport stream. But I find that the TS version of the video does not have one or two minor glitches that occur when you use Share > Create Video File > HDV which has a TS setting. X2 (and VS 11/11.5+ and 10+) have a HDV Recording function which achieves the same thing. It produces a new TS file, and then in a separate action, exports it to the mini DV tape in a HDV camera. It also does not use SmartRender (as I also recommend not be used for either HDV or AVCHD rendering...)
Normally, I have found that production of a TS file takes more than 4 times real time, even on a Quad. But as I say, that is with one and a bit core working on the rendering. Thus a 10 minute 27 second project would take around 45 minutes to render.
However, with Core Tuner in operation, that time was slashed to 15 minutes 12 seconds for the same project -- a significant saving of time. The resulting video was the same high quality I always get when using this process. Task Manager showed all four cores operating at much the same high rate of activity, averaging 85% - 90% usages, with the occasional spike up to 100%. RAM usage was around 3 GB (I have 4 GB... though only 3.5 GB of that is seen by Vista...)
Curiously enough, though, when using SmartRender on the same project, which usually takes a little over real time (i.e. a 10 minute project might take 11 to 12 minutes, depending on the complexity of titles, transitions etc), there was not much saving of time, probably real time, and two of the four cores only seemed to be really involved, though the other two showed reduced rates of activity which were a bit higher than they normally show. RAM usage was down at around 2.6 GB.
I have also done some projects using AVCHD. These are more demanding, even on a Quad, and I find that on average rendering a project without SmartRender (or SmartProxy) takes 6 times or more real time. With Core Tuner applied, a similar, though surprisingly lower, level of activity in all four cores was noticeable, and RAM usage was a constant 2.4 GB straight line. But the time saving, while appreciable, still amounted to between 3 and 4 times real time.
Even more interestingly, when rendering AVCHD using SmartRender, the speed-up was very noticeable -- more than half real time (as opposed to about 1.5 times real time without Core Tuner active). Curiously, only one Core was fully active (Core 3) though Core 4 showed higher activity than normal. RAM usage was between 1.9 and 2.1 GB. Indeed, the project I used for this was so short (a bit under 30 seconds) and the rendering went so quick that I had to do it a second time to ensure that Task Manager was open and running at the time!
The bad news of this particular one, though, was that not only were there the expected blips after the transitions (as experienced by seemingly all AVCHD users, particularly when using SmartRender), but there were a number of other blocky artifacts which made the end result totally unacceptable. (I was using the original AVCHD bitrate of VBR max 16.8 Mbps and 5.1 audio, by the way.)
So there we are, a very mixed bag of results. However, the core message, if you'll pardon the pun,
is that boosting the performance of all cores using Core Tuner was certainly possible in certain circumstances.And I just bought the full version of the program!
At US$7.99 even if it only works with VS, it was worth it...
I am surprised, though, that your average core usage was only running at around 60%. Mine was a good deal higher, as mentioned above -- at least when rendering high definition video. What were you rendering at the time?