Valve takes on hybrid-threading, makes me want a new computer

[Image: hl2box]According to this article on bit-tech this morning, Valve has been busy hacking away at their trusty Source engine and getting it all souped up to run on multi-core computers.

I have to admit that when Intel first started touting the multi-core approach, I was not as impressed as I should have been.

After reading through the article and realizing exactly how the new arrangements can be used to boost the gaming experience (oh yeah, and I guess run regular applications faster, too), I’m getting excited.

The essential bit seems to be this: that with multiple cores, there are multiple ways to split the CPUs workload across the processors. It turns out that the one that scales the best (and works the best) is to micromanage each task, splitting up mini-processes or large processes (entire sound processing, for example) and dumping them on other cores.

In other words, once the software is set up to take advantage of it, the new hardware is going to make a pretty big difference. Cool.