[SOLVED] Can I enable and disable CPU cores on the fly in Windows?

[theonerm2]

I like to test things and see how they run with different core configurations but having to restart and enter the bios every time I want to change the core count is a pain even with an SSD. Does anyone know of a way to do what I want without restarting?

I have an idea. I could just load the core or cores that I want to disable to 100% and they should be effectively the same as disabled. Though I don't know exactly how well my idea would work.

Also I could set affinity but that wouldn't quite be the same.

 

[Barty1884]

MSConfig & advanced should give you the option to select the number of activate processing cores?

What are you actually trying to achieve in disabling them?

 

[theonerm2]

MSConfig & advanced should give you the option to select the number of activate processing cores?

What are you actually trying to achieve in disabling them?

Yes but don't I still have to restart to apply the settings?

I'm testing games and seeing how well they run with less cores. But I don't wanna restart because my PC is also a plex media server. I'm not really looking to achieve anything but to know how well it works. I just want to gain knowledge from my testing.

 

[Barty1884]

Not 100% sure. You might be able to get away with logging out, opposed to restarting.... but I guess that doesn't really help much.

Unless you want to test a title that hasn't been tested by someone else.... you can get a pretty good idea from info already out there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS_sVz-8gUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGp41W5W3XQ

Etc, etc.

Not directly comparable "cores" in a lot of cases, but a lot of the info is already out there.


The only way I can think to adequately achieve what you want, would be restarting & changing active cores in the BIOS.