I am running Fluent 6.0 on a dual processor machine running Windows 2000. I have two Fluent windows running. I want to know if its possible for one window to run off of one processor and the other window to run the other processor? Both processors are 2 GHz, so I want to get the most out of it that I can.

Have you installed the parallel version and partitioned your grid?

Things depend on your Fluent license. If you only have a license for one process, then no you cannot run two calculations simultaneously.

If you have 2 or more Fluent licenses, then you have 3 options with your dual computer: A) Run a single calculation with just one processor. This lets you use the other processor for things like data analysis or more Gambit design without slowing down your calculation. B) Run a single calculation with both processors. This usually runs 80% to 110% faster for me than a calculation with just one processor, but you cannot run any other program without slowing down the calculation. C) Run two different calculations at the same time. This kindof defeats the purpose of a dual CPU machine, since it runs just like two single CPU machines, but it can be done. Each runs at full single CPU speed. You cannot run any other programs without slowing down the calculation.

Can you direct a process to run on a particular processor under Windows?

What I'm doing is running two data sets at once in two different windows. It just seems to me that the computer is using one processor to run both of them.

I believe you have to partition your grid and run the parallel version of Fluent.

You can control it in the Task Manager. Just right click in the taskbar (at the bottom) and you will get a menu. Open Task Manager. You will see 3 tabs: "Applications", "Processes" and "Performance". You will see under "Processes" the different tasks your computer performs with the CPU stress mentioned. When you run 2 simulations on a dual machine the maximum stress can be 50 for 1 simulation. First check whether this is not the case yet. Normally Win2k distributes the tasks over both processors and you do not have to change anything yourself. If you right click on a process you can set a priority for the process and choose whether it can run on both processors or on just one of them. But normally you should not change it. Under "Performance" you can visually follow the stress of your processors and your memory. If you are not satisfied with the performance of your machine, check whether you do not exceed the physical memory of your system since this will slow down your system. Another problem could be your harddrive. If you have to store a lot of data (monitor-lines etc.) during your simulations and you don't have a high speed storage system it will become a real bottleneck. You should then think about a RAID system.

http://www.mlin.net/SMPSeesaw.shtml

You can find there SMP Seesaw which is a small utility to manually assign a specific task to one processor in a multiprocessor environment.

I Hope it will help.

Regards.

Alexandre