Forcing applications to use a certain core

[Allen]

I have a dual core processer and have found that if I'm running two resource hungry applications I can set their affinity to one or the other core using Task Manager and it seems to improve them. However, I wondered if there was a way to do this without opening them and then changing the affinity in Task Manager every time.

So I had a little look around on the net to try and find out how to do this, and so far I can only find a way to do it under Vista, but I have XP Home. So, I'm turning to you guys to see if anyone knows how to do it.

In Vista you can create a shortcut to the program using the following target:

c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C start /affinity 1 program.exe

Sadly though, the "/affinity" switch isn't available on XP so hence me needing to ask. Anyone aware of a way to do this on XP? Or a piece of simple software maybe that can handle changing it automatically for me each time?

Cheers,

Allen

[directhex]

i hat a tool for running on the first core, but not core of choice

[moogle]

you can google for imagecfg.exe which can set the core which it runs on. but you'll have to make a copy of the program for each core.

[SilentDeath]

Thanks I didnt know that shortcut could be done. Is there also a way to change the priority from the shortcut?

Also I have a similar problem with graphics, Ive got two cards and want to run a game twice - by default it will always open on the same card even if I drag it across to the other monitor.

The game doesn't have visible D3D adaptor settings like older games used to. Is there a way to change it without editing the application?

edit:

HRESULT IDirect3D9::CreateDevice(UINT adapter, D3DDEVTYPE deviceType, HWND focusWindow,DWORD behaviourFlags, D3DPRESENT_PARAMETERS *presentationParameters, IDirect3DDevice9** device);

However there must be an easyer way? can the default adaptor be easly changed in the registry or somewhere? I have not done much/any d3d coding before so I dont know where to look.




Do drivers with SLI/crossfire enabled allow this to be done somehow?