Can someone explain this? (Strange CPU usage)

[DMBand0026]

I was playing Starcraft today on my 12" PB, 1.33ghz G4, OS X.3.4, 786MB RAM, and I got an IM, so I took Starcraft out of full screen mode to check who it was. While I was out in finder-land I decided to check the CPU usage and other stuff using the "top" command in Terminal. I was shocked when I saw what it was reporting:

http://www.davidlegatt.com/pix/big_cpu.jpg

Edit: There is an image here, if it doesn't load just wait a sec cause it's on a slow server :grumble: If it doesn't load at all, "top" is reporting that Starcraft's CPU usage is at 107.9%

Edit #2: Fixed image. Thanks for hosting it ThunderPoit :)

Can someone explain how an app was using over 100% of my processor? Keeping in mind that this is a PowerBook, so it's a single CPU. It's not really all that important, but I found it interesting. Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this for me.

And one more question, is there a command similar to "top" but for the GPU?

[Wrao]

Must have been a really good game of SC

[DMBand0026]

:lol:

Oh yeah, I'm wicked good ;)


I did the same thing again last night and saw the CPU usage jump to 171% for about 10 seconds before dropping back into the 80s. Anyone have any idea how that can happen? I'm really lost. :confused:

[Dave]

There could be a bug that adds 100% to the processor usage. :confused: :)

[Wickers]

Maybe your G4 really puts out. ;)

[Brad]

I've seen this reported just once before by a single-CPU user. I think someone attributed it to a timing error in the top command; it was under such a heavy load it just totally miscalculated all the values.

[alcimedes]

yeah, top isn't exact, so you can see that on occasion. although that's pretty far over.