System and method for dynamically allocating resources to a game process

• US 10,639,550 B2
• Filed: 04/18/2017
• Issued: 05/05/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gen Digital Inc.
• Original Assignee: BullGuard Ltd. (Gen Digital Inc.)
• Inventors: Argintaru, Danut Emil, Clyde, Robert Allan
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim, Dong U
• Application Number:
  US15/490,790
• Publication Number:
  US 20180296922A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,113 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/50 Controlling the output signals based on the game progress
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/65 automatically by game devices or servers from real world data, e.g. measurement in live racing competition
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/69 Involving elements of the real world in the game world, e.g. measurement in live races, real video
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5066 Algorithms for mapping a plurality of inter-dependent sub-tasks onto a plurality of physical CPUs mappping at compile time, see G06F8/451

Abstract

A method of allocating computer resources in a computer system including a multicore processor having a plurality of cores. The method includes monitoring usage of the computer resources by processes executing on the computer system and determining, based upon the monitoring, that one of the processes is a high-utilization process consuming greater than a predefined threshold of the computer resources and corresponds to an application in an interactive state. One or more of the plurality of cores are allocated to the high-utilization process and other of the plurality of cores are allocated to remaining processes, thereby improving performance of the high-utilization process. Upon detecting the application has transitioned from the interactive state, one or more of the cores are previously allocated to the high-utilization process are enabled to be allocated to other than the high-utilization process.

Claims

1. A method of allocating computer resources in a computer system including a multicore processor having a plurality of cores, the method comprising:

monitoring usage of the computer resources by processes executing on the computer system, the monitoring including monitoring usage of at least one of the multicore processor and a graphics processing unit;

determining, based upon the monitoring, that one of the processes is a high-utilization process of an application in an interactive state, the determining including detecting a condition wherein the condition indicates;

(i) the high-utilization process is consuming greater than a predefined threshold of the computer resources and is running in a fullscreen mode, (ii) a graphics API has been loaded or initialized in the computer system;

allocating one or more of the plurality of cores to the high-utilization process wherein other of the plurality of cores are allocated to remaining ones of the processes, thereby improving performance of the high-utilization process;

detecting the application has transitioned from the interactive state;

wherein the detecting includes monitoring the processes executing on the computer system to determine whether the high-utilization process has transitioned from operating in the fullscreen mode; and

enabling, based upon the detecting, the one or more of the plurality of cores to be allocated to other than the high-utilization process.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the application is a game application.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the detecting includes determining that at least one of (i) a user interface window of the game application has been minimized, and (ii) the game application has transitioned from operation in the fullscreen mode.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the determining includes determining that the one of the processes consumes greater than a predefined threshold of usage of a GPU of the computer system and that the application utilizes a graphics API.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the detecting the application has transitioned includes monitoring the processes executing on the computer system to determine whether the window for the high-utilization process has been taken out of the foreground.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the allocating includes setting an affinity of the high-utilization process to the one or more of the plurality of cores.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the monitoring includes monitoring usage of the multicore processor and wherein the predefined threshold corresponds to predetermined percentage of resources of the multicore processor, the determining further including detecting that a graphics API has been loaded.

8. The method of claim 1 further including increasing at least one of a processor priority and an IO priority of the high-utilization process, thereby further improving the performance of the high-utilization process.

9. The method of claim 1 further including at least one of stopping other of the processes or delaying execution of one or more tasks scheduled by the computer system.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the plurality of cores is a hyper-threaded core, the method further including parking the hyper-threaded core.

11. The method of claim 1 further including launching, in response to the determining, a self-configured program operative to stop or delay execution of one or more of the processes or one or more tasks scheduled for execution by the computer system.

12. The method of claim 1 further including launching, in response to the determining, an overclocking program operative to modify a clock rate of at least one of the multicore processor and a graphics processing unit.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the remaining ones of the processes allocated to other of the plurality of cores corresponds to an antivirus protection program, the method further including lowering resource utilization of the antivirus program.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the remaining ones of the processes include one or more of a backup program, a cloud file sync program, and an e-mail sync program.

15. The method of claim 14 further including lowering a resource utilization of one or more of the remaining ones of the processes.

16. A method of claim 1 wherein the allocating includes allocating a first of the plurality of cores to a first thread of the high-utilization process and allocating a second of the plurality of cores to a second thread of the high-utilization process.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the high-utilization process corresponds to a game, the method further including determining the game needs a number of processing cores to perform optimally wherein the one or more of the plurality of cores allocated to the high-utilization process is equal to the number of processing cores.

18. A method for improving performance of a game process in a computer system including a multicore processor having a plurality of cores, the method comprising:

monitoring usage of resources of the computer system by processes executing on the computer system, the monitoring including monitoring usage of at least one of the multicore processor and a graphics processing unit;

automatically detecting, based upon the monitoring usage, the game process has begun executing on one or more of the plurality of cores wherein the automatically detecting includes detecting a condition wherein the condition indicates;

(i) a high-utilization process is consuming greater than a predefined threshold of the resources and is running in a fullscreen mode, and (ii) a graphics API has been loaded or initialized in the computer system; and

automatically allocating, in response to the automatically detecting the process has begun executing, other processes to one of the plurality of cores different from the one or more of the plurality of cores on which the game process is executing.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the other processes include one or more of an antivirus program, an endpoint protection program and a security program.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein the other processes include one or more of a backup program, a cloud file sync program, and an e-mail sync program.

21. The method of claim 18 further including lowering a resource utilization of the other processes.

22. A computer system configured to optimize application performance, the computer system comprising:

a multicore processor having a plurality of cores;

a graphics processing unit;

a memory including a performance optimization module wherein the performance optimization module is configured for;

monitoring usage of computer resources by processes executing on the computer system, the computer resources including at least one of the multicore processor and the graphics processing unit;

determining that one of the processes is a high-utilization process of an application in an interactive state, the determining including detecting a condition wherein the condition indicates;

(i) the high-utilization process is consuming greater than a predefined threshold of the computer resources and is running in a fullscreen mode, and (ii) a graphics API has been loaded or initialized in the computer system;

allocating one or more of the plurality of cores to the high-utilization process wherein other of the plurality of cores are allocated to remaining ones of the processes, thereby improving performance of the high-utilization process;

detecting the application has transitioned from the interactive state wherein the detecting includes monitoring the processes executing on the computer system to determine whether the high-utilization process has transitioned from operating in the fullscreen mode; and

enabling the one or more of the plurality of cores to be allocated to other than the high-utilization process.

23. The computer system of claim 22 wherein the active state corresponds to at least one of (i) operation of the application in one of a fullscreen mode, and (ii) operation of the application in a windowed mode wherein a window of the application is a foreground window.

24. The computer system of claim 22 wherein the performance optimization module is further configured to set an affinity of the high-utilization process to the one or more of the plurality of cores.

25. A method of allocating computer resources in a computer system including a multicore processor having a plurality of cores, the method comprising:

monitoring usage of the computer resources by processes executing on the computer system, the monitoring including monitoring usage of at least one of the multicore processor and a graphics processing unit;

determining, based upon the monitoring, that one of the processes is a high-utilization process of an application in an interactive state, the determining including detecting a condition wherein the condition indicates;

(i) the high-utilization process is consuming greater than a predefined threshold of the computer resources and is in a windowed mode in which the window for the high-utilization process is in the foreground, and (ii) a graphics API has been loaded or initialized in the computer system;

allocating one or more of the plurality of cores to the high-utilization process wherein other of the plurality of cores are allocated to remaining ones of the processes, thereby improving performance of the high-utilization process;

detecting the application has transitioned from the interactive state wherein the detecting includes monitoring the processes executing on the computer system to determine whether the high-utilization process has transitioned from operating in the fullscreen mode; and

enabling, based upon the detecting, the one or more of the plurality of cores to be allocated to other than the high-utilization process.