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Multithreading

Multithreading is a technique used to improve performance and enhance the perceived responsiveness of applications. On computers with one processor, this technique can allow a program to execute multiple pieces of code independently. On computers with more than one processor, multithreading can allow a program to execute multiple pieces of code simultaneously. If your application is single-threaded, consider threading your application to take advantage of hardware multithreading processor capabilities. If your application is multithreaded, you’ll want to ensure that the number of threads is not hard coded to a fixed number of processors.

Dual-core technology improves performance by providing two physical cores within a single physical processor package. Multiprocessor and dual-core technology all exploit thread-level parallelism to improve application and system responsiveness and to boost processor throughput.

When you prepare code to run as a universal binary, the multithreading capabilities of the microprocessor are transparent to you. This is true whether your application is threaded or not. However, you can optimize your code to take advantage of the specific way hardware multithreading is implemented for each architecture.

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