I have a basic question.
If I run an executable file (Release, Visual Studio 2010) on two computers with the same CPU speed run two different Windows operating systems, eg. Windws7 vs XP, shall I expect to see different CPU usages when I measure it using the task manager? Is the CPU speed the only factor to measuring the CPU usage?
Thanks.
Sar
Different OS’s? Yes.
Operating Systems are the go-between between the programs you run and the bare-metal they run on. As OS’es change and evolve the naturally and and remove features that consume resources–these are things that run in the background; or they could be changes to the manner in which the OS speaks to the hardware.
Also, the measurement of CPU usage is done by the OS. There isn’t a tachometer on chips saying “running at 87% of redline”, but rather that “tach” is constructed largely by the OS.
After better understanding your situation: I would suggest taking a look at the Performance Monitor (perfmon.exe) which ships with both XP and Win7, and gets you much finer-grain detail about processor usage levels. Another (very good) option would be to consider running a profiler on your application on both OSes and compare the results. It would likely be the best option to specifically benchmark your application on both OSes.