Re: Throttling PostgreSQL's CPU usage

Thanks for all the feedback. Unfortunately I didn't specify that this
is running on a WinXP machine (the 3D renderer is an ActiveX plugin),
and I don't even think "nice" is available. I've tried using the
Windows Task Manager to set every postgres.exe process to a low
priority, but that didn't make a difference.

Several people have mentioned having multiple processors; my current
machine is a uni-processor machine, but I believe we could spec the
actual runtime machine to have multiple processors/cores. I'm only
running one query at a time; would that query be guaranteed to
confine itself to a single processor/core?

In terms of performance, I don't think simply more power will do the
trick; I've got an AMD 3200+, and even doubling the power/halving the
stutter time won't be good enough.

Someone suggested "setting the CPU costs higher"; where would I learn
about that?

Someone else mentioned having a custom function that sleep()ed on
every row access; where would I learn more about that?

I've also been reading up on VACUUM. I haven't explicitly run it in
the several days since I've installed the database (by loading a
humongous data.sql file); might this be part of the performance
problem?

Thanks again,
Dan

--
Daniel T. Griscom griscom(at)suitable(dot)com
Suitable Systems http://www.suitable.com/
1 Centre Street, Suite 204 (781) 665-0053
Wakefield, MA 01880-2400