Intel and Microsoft rolls out SMT parking feature in windows 7
gaurav bagdi
" Gaurav Bagdi is a 22 year old part time Blogger, Technical writer. Interested in day to day evolution in the field of technology. He’s the editor of Webketu - Technology Evolves. and owner of NetKetu. You can also catch him on twitter.”
This came as a refreshing start for Microsoft and Intel, with Intel Engineers are already working on various options and add-ons for the newest version of one of the most popular Operating System, widely used in the World. Known as “Windows Seven“.
Working with Intel, Microsoft implemented a new feature called SMT parking, which provided additional support for the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology, enabling better performance on hyper-threaded, multi-core Intel processors. This will help users get the maximum benefit from multi-tasking. Also, Intel and Microsoft jointly analyzed the boot/shutdown/sleep/resume times on Intel platforms during the development of Windows 7 to identify opportunities to optimize Intel drivers and BIOS as well as Windows 7. Our mutual goal was to provide the most responsive compute experience possible. Another key part of the performance and responsiveness was our collaboration to optimize Intel Solid State Drive technology for Windows 7, Joakim Lialias Said
(Intel Alliance Manager for Microsoft).
The companies also worked together on technologies that could allow Windows 7 to boot and shut down faster, Alfs said. Driver and BIOS-level improvement could improve the start, shut-down, sleep and resume times. Chips based on the Nehalem microarchitecture can go into an idle state faster than earlier chips, and Windows 7 is designed to take advantage of that capability, Alfs said.
Software typically lags hardware development by three to five years, and software developers are still playing catch-up to hardware improvements. Even today, many consumer software applications are not designed to take advantage of multiple cores. But Windows 7 could encourage developers to start writing applications for multicore chips.
The past few years have also seen the emergence of solid-state drives, which are considered faster than hard drives. Intel and Microsoft are working on technologies to speed access to SSDs by including faster read and write capabilities. Intel plans to deliver firmware for its SSDs that supports the Trim command in Windows 7, which speeds up the writing and erasing of SSDs.
Microsoft is also incorporating DirectX 11 graphics drivers into Windows 7 to effectively break up tasks over multiple cores to boost application and graphics performance. Intel in June already launched new graphics drivers that work with Windows 7, but for now the drivers support only DirectX 10.
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