Request to hide units, commas, extra spacing

[twizzlerite]

I love this program and use it regularly in conjunction with the RivaTuner (MSI Afterburner) OSD. I have a request similar to one made about a month ago.

I decided that I wanted to show CPU usage info in the OSD. Ideally, I only really need one number: the highest CPU usage among all threads, similar to Core Max for CPU temperature. This is useful to tell when an application is maxing out a thread when you can't predict which thread it might be. No matter; having extra information never killed anyone, so I tried showing the CPU usage for every core/thread. Currently, lines take up roughly twice as much horizontal space as necessary with a fixed-width font due to the comma, the percent sign, and the extra space before the percent sign.

For example, a line like: CPU 10 %, 11 %, 12 %, 13 %
Would be more practical as: CPU 10 11 12 13

The user likely knows what the data in the OSD represents, so they probably don't need the commas or units, at least in the case of joining numbers that follow each other.

I like the addition of the "Decimal digits" option, and in that vein I think it would be great to add an option for "Decimal padding" alongside it to keep things in roughly the same place when multiple numbers are on the same line in the OSD.

For example: 10 5 20 3
Would be more visually-consistent as: 10 05 20 03

I'm not sure how the API for the OSD works, so for all I know, these things may not be practical or doable, but at least for my case, they'd be very helpful and allow me to take advantage of the greater horizontal than vertical space.

Thanks.

 

[Martin]

OK, I'll put this request into my queue

 

[Martin]

I have added a new option in RTSS called "Raw value" which displays the value without units. If you don't want to display the comma separator between values on the same row, then configure HWiNFO to show these values on the same column.
It's available since build 1831 released few minutes ago.

 

[JeffroGymnast]

I'm interested in the same thing - but I wonder if there is an easier way to go about it. Martin, is there a way to take the sensor data and only display the highest load value out of all of the cores? Or perhaps you could add an entry in hwinfo for the highest core load.

Currently using the "display raw data" feature, thank you for adding it.

 

[Martin]

Currently there's the "Total CPU Usage" value reported. Is this not suitable for your needs?

 

[stangowner]

Currently there's the "Total CPU Usage" value reported. Is this not suitable for your needs?

Hi Martin,

I think they want to be able to see this issue:

You have a quad core machine. A single thread is buried at 100%, and it is the only active thread. The Total CPU Usage will show 25% (100+0+0+0 / 4). I think they want to see 100% because it is the bottleneck.

I'm not sure how it is reported because I think the scheduler in the kernel will bounce the request for CPU time through different cores anyways.....or does the CPU do this? If you look at the task manager you may see the 4 cores all performing some work, not always 1 core at 100% while the other 3 are idle.

 

[Martin]

That depends on two factors - the scheduler and how the application is written. If the application does high load on a single thread only, the scheduler cannot divide this work between other threads. It might only switch the entire thread's affinity between different CPUs, but I'm not sure if this happens. Also, the application might set fixed thread/CPU affinity, then the system won't change it.
Anyway, for such monitoring purposes, the per-thread/core usage is reported by HWiNFO, so I'm not sure if a new value reporting the max load from all CPUs is necessary.

 

[stangowner]

...
Anyway, for such monitoring purposes, the per-thread/core usage is reported by HWiNFO, so I'm not sure if a new value reporting the max load from all CPUs is necessary.

I started a single threaded prime95 stress test to look at the results. Here is the HWiNFO sensors and Windows 8 task manager. You can even see it jumped from the first core to the second.....but otherwise the work is not distributed:

You can see I have 12 thread/cores (1 thread at 100% = 8.33% CPU usage). So to display these 12 entries in the OSD would not only be too long, but too many values to watch. So I think their request is if there was a single entry in sensors called "Core/Thread Max Usage" then it would have the values: 100%, 0%, 100% and 18.8%. This way they can get the 100% into a single entry in the OSD, without using 12 entries to get it, or the total usage which does not report it.

 

[Martin]

OK, I'll add such entry into sensors I just hope such value won't confuse other users...

 

[stangowner]

OK, I'll add such entry into sensors I just hope such value won't confuse other users...

I'm sure it will.....LOL. :shy:

---

OK, I'll add such entry into sensors I just hope such value won't confuse other users...

I'm sure it will.....LOL. :shy:

Just a thought.....maybe update the icon to show the value is calculated and not actually a direct sensor reading? Or if you want to keep the temp/clock/etc icon, then maybe append a ' [calculated]' suffix for display in the sensors window (not in gadget or shared memory, but just for display on that entry in the sensors window). This may help to reduce the possibility of confusion for users???

 

[Martin]

I have added reporting of Max CPU/Thread Usage.
Check here: http://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-Build-1851-preview-with-FRAPS-support

 

[User 870]

Hello,
first i want to thank you for the amazing tool you provide, it helps a lot and I'm very happy with it, thanks a lot for all the hard work you put on this.

Now come the reason why i registered on the forum :

I have added a new option in RTSS called "Raw value" which displays the value without units. If you don't want to display the comma separator between values on the same row, then configure HWiNFO to show these values on the same column.
It's available since build 1831 released few minutes ago.

I would like to ask something:
- If i want to keep the symbols % and °C and not have the commas how can i do it please ?
I tried to pass the 3 values for the threads lines into the same column but if i don't check the Raw box the commas are still displaying.
For info, in those lines the values displayed are :
Core #X Threads : Thread 1 Usage % / Thread 2 usage % / Core Temperature °C

- Also like requested before, have a double digit when the number is 0.0% to turn it into 00.0% or when it's 5.2% to have 05.2%, like in the 2 last lines displayed, just to keep all values aligned for better, quicker and easier reading.

I made a little montage to explain what I'd like to achieve (A total remove of commas in all the lines and keep the symbols) :

Should have typed into the image " Double digit if number is inferior to 10 to keep it aligned " but it's too late now

- ( and really really optional : an option to have no extra space between value and symbol, this turning 25.3 % into 25.3% with the symbol attached to the number, but this is very optional and would be useful only in certain games having a charged HUD to have a better compact display not eating to much space into the game huds, like i said this is very optional other things are way more important for my usage )

I don't want to sound like i request something ( even if in fact I do :angel: ), your program already helps a lot and is very satisfying but those things will help so much for a better reading and it will be faster to do quick check on values as all will be aligned and somehow compacted, i don't even know if it is possible to do it or if there is some kind of limitations, so i ask

Again thanks a lot for your program i love it and use it everyday, and thanks for taking the time to read this request.

 

[Martin]

OK, I see that your request is reasonable and would improve the readability. I'll think about how to do this the best way and to avoid too many settings.
However there's a question arising to the request - what if the core usage reaches 100% ? If that case you'd loose the alignment anyway (if aligned to 2 digits).

 

[User 870]

Hello,

Thank you for taking this in consideration .

As for the 100% yeah i didn't think about this one as it almost never happened to me to have a single core maxed so it doesn't bother me even if it happens once in a while, the number can be misaligned it's not a problem at all in this situation, it might become helpful to quickly notice something is maxed out by simply seeing the lines misaligned.

It could please some people to have a 3 digits especially with some games eating the cpu until it reach regularly 100% for those using C2D and this generation of cpu's with some game engines, maybe having an option similar to the one we have to set the number of digits we want after the decimal , but this one will be before the decimal, something like :

1 = 0.0 as it is now
2 = 00.0
3 = 000.0

Anyways having 2 digits before the decimal will be enough for me, it will be a great change even if it breaks if one thread reach 100%

Thanks a lot for all

If this comes out, I'll have to request the same thing on MSIAB forums too :idea:

 

[Martin]

OK, I'll add aligning of usage values for RTSS, but in a slightly different way. It will be automatic, but won't prefix the value with a 0, but an empty space instead. So you'll get for example:
54.3 %
_6.2 %
"_" is an empty space character.
That will be available in the next release.

If you don't want to display the commas as separators, you can do this with the current version - just configure HWiNFO to place values at the same column. For example:
Core 0, Thread 0 Usage: Line n, Column 1
Core 0, Thread 1 Usage: Line n, Column 1
Core 0 Temperature: Line n, Column 1

 

[User 870]

Thx a lot it will be perfect and even more clear to read without the additional zeros.

As for the commas i use the version 4.12-1850 and setting all values to the same line as described doesn't seems to have any effect for me, still having the commas.

The only way to remove the commas is to have the "RAW value" also selected, when i do this it works but since i want to keep symbols it's not good .

Example with the RAM line, this is the setting i have( tested also for cpu threads lines with same results ) :



This results in the same display as picture posted previously with commas not removed, maybe i'm missing something here i don't know.

I use the portable version of the program, maybe I'll have to remove it entirely and install a fresh one and redo all my settings again to see if it might work, will do tomorrow if needed, today i will miss time for redo all this.

Thanks a lot for all.

 

[Martin]

Ah yes, I forgot to add, that in order to remove the commas you need to use the Raw Value setting too.

 

[User 870]

That's it then, not sure if i had forgot something or not.

And as i want to remove the commas but keep the symbols % °C i think there is no way actually then.

Thx

 

[Martin]

Well, currently there isn't such a way. I just try to keep backwards compatibility and avoid adding too many settings, which might confuse users.
But I guess the commas is something you can live with?

 

[User 870]

Of course i can live without it, anyways i don't have the choice

It was just a matter of removing commas taking some space an not useful for me to get the thing more compact but don't worry i can do as it is now, it is already more compact than the screenshot i posted earlier since i changed the custom names displaying by something shorter.

I want to tank you for your patience and to have took the time to take in consideration the changes to keep the alignment of values with empty spaces when numbers are lower than 10.

Thanks a lot and keep up the good works with this very useful tool .