CPU usage/lag

Hi there. I've been using MUSH as a replacement for Zmud. Thanks to people on the mud I play, and the scripts I use, it's far more fun to play using it.

There is one problem though that's been bugging me:
Constant CPU usage while MUSHClient is running after a certain amount of time. I don't know if there is a debugging process going on behind the scenes, or if some other background component is constantly occupying half of my Intel Atom N270 CPU (sys info to follow at bottom). This only happens after a certain amount of time has passed after launch, and when it does my CPU is constantly reading 40-60%, as one of the CPU threads is always busy. It is most notable with an erratic mouse pointer.

The MUSHClient.exe process is never showing this CPU usage, which is why I'm confused why the system lags. It is especially draining of the battery, due to this high CPU usage. Can someone please help? Is there a command I can issue to kill any debugging?

Number of cores 1 (max 1)
Number of threads 2 (max 2)
Name Intel Atom N270
Codename Diamondville
Specification Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz
Package (platform ID) Socket 437 FCBGA8 (0x2)
CPUID 6.C.2
Extended CPUID 6.1C
Core Stepping C0
Technology 45 nm
Core Speed 798.1 MHz
Multiplier x FSB 6.0 x 133.0 MHz
Rated Bus speed 532.1 MHz
Stock frequency 1600 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3
L1 Data cache 24 KBytes, 6-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 512 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control yes
FID range 6.0x - 12.0x
Max VID 1.200 V
2GB of RAM
XP Home sp3

So which process is?

That's apparently what they're asking. They only notice it when MUSHclient's been left running.

Mikey, to the best of my knowledge, MUSHclient is a single process. Nick might know something I don't.

This doesn't make sense. Whatever mechanism is being used to determine that MUSHclient.exe is NOT using 60% of CPU time (taskmanager?) can surely determine which process IS doing it.

There is no background debugging. If you bring up the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and then click on the CPU column it sorts it into CPU order (maybe click twice, until you get the highest figure at the top).

That should show what is using all this CPU. If you have a dual-core processor it conceivably is some process in a tight CPU loop, using one of the cores. However you are saying that process is not MUSHclient, right?

Well, which one is it?

Look at the memory usage. Is it abnormally high? If you have allocated a lot of lines to the output buffer, when it fills up it might be gobbling up your memory and causing it to constantly page, which might account for it.



There *is* one extra thread, that checks if the script file has changed. However that code has been there a long time, and no-one has complained before. And I don't see why, after a time period, it would suddenly use all the available CPU.

Ok I lowered my output scrollback buffer to 50,000 lines, and after a couple of days, it no longer seems to be keeping my CPU busy, and that's a good thing!

Thanks for the tip.