Processor Support

The RTX64 Runtime extends the Windows operating system’s capabilities to deliver hard real-time performance, on a 64-bit platform.

Windows Processor Enumeration

RTX64 supports multiprocessor-based systems running 64-bit Windows. RTX64 runs on x64 platform, including Intel EM64T and AMD64.The RTX64 RTSS exploits the features of SMP-compliant multiprocessor systems. This provides improved performance by allowing multiple threads to execute concurrently.

Multiprocessor systems with a maximum of eight processors, that do not implement processor clustering, use an 8-bit CPU ID to identify each processor.

Processor Clusters

Multiprocessor systems that provide support for more than eight processors and those that implement processor 0 clustering still use 8-bits to distinguish processors. However, the bits are used to assign each processor to a cluster group. This allows for a maximum of 64 processors.

Although most systems with eight or fewer processors do not use cluster groups, some servers (such as those based on the Intel® Xeon® e5506 series processor) automatically force processor clustering.

RTX64 Processor Identification

RTX64 statically partitions cores on a system so there are cores dedicated to Windows and cores dedicated to RTSS. Up to 64 core systems are supported by RTX64. For example, on a system with 24 cores if the RTX64 subsystem is configured to use 20 cores, Windows would be able to use cores 0, 1, 2, 3, and RTX64 would use the remaining cores 4 through 23.

Processor Configuration Mode

RTX64 RTSS schedules tasks to execute on its dedicated processors, without any interference from the Windows operating system or Windows processes.