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**johnd01** · 08-05-2008

Quote: Originally Posted by sidewinder

johnd01,

You are blaming Vista for the Excel programmer's (or the development environment Excel is programmed in) deficiencies.

Excel is not the most efficient program out there and nothing you can do tuning the system is going to help it get more efficient. If you want that spreadsheet to recalculate faster, get a faster processor.

S-

I do not blame Vista.
I know Excel is not a fast program.
Excel peaks at about 57% of available CPU cycles.
There are other reasons I am using Excel to do this.
I have a visual basic program that does about the same thing but I have been mandated to use a program that can easily be audited by casual users.

I am running 4 64 bit 3GHz cores now with 8 GB of ram. (Athlon FX-74)
What faster CPU should I get?
My spread sheet saves to 100 Meg after I delete the imported data.

An application exports 4 sheets of 216,000 cells each, 1 second of data. I generate 400,000 cells of data in the main sheet from that and delete the 4 other sheets.

A recalculation only takes 6 seconds but it has to be done may times. Goal seeking is a big part of the time.

After 4 different set of goals have been found other data points are refined and the goals have to be found again and some times a third time.

I know there are better ways to do this but being able to explain to skeptics what is happening is real high on the list.

A lot to the time only one core is in use. I would like to be able to have Excel run all it wants to. There is almost always an ideal core.

Note:
The VB version uses 85% CPU and can do the job in under a second.

I can live with what I have but good tunning should be able to cut a full minute off the time.
Setting the priority higher moves the thread up the CPU queue but if there is no queue that does not help much. Having the thread move out of a CPU only to be moved into an other CPU because there are no other threads waiting to run does not help matters.

Thanks for your comments.

08-05-2008	#6 (permalink)
johnd01 ultimate x64 at work and home premium 32bit on home laptop 10 posts	Re: Performance tuning Quote: Originally Posted by sidewinder johnd01, You are blaming Vista for the Excel programmer's (or the development environment Excel is programmed in) deficiencies. Excel is not the most efficient program out there and nothing you can do tuning the system is going to help it get more efficient. If you want that spreadsheet to recalculate faster, get a faster processor. S- I do not blame Vista. I know Excel is not a fast program. Excel peaks at about 57% of available CPU cycles. There are other reasons I am using Excel to do this. I have a visual basic program that does about the same thing but I have been mandated to use a program that can easily be audited by casual users. I am running 4 64 bit 3GHz cores now with 8 GB of ram. (Athlon FX-74) What faster CPU should I get? My spread sheet saves to 100 Meg after I delete the imported data. An application exports 4 sheets of 216,000 cells each, 1 second of data. I generate 400,000 cells of data in the main sheet from that and delete the 4 other sheets. A recalculation only takes 6 seconds but it has to be done may times. Goal seeking is a big part of the time. After 4 different set of goals have been found other data points are refined and the goals have to be found again and some times a third time. I know there are better ways to do this but being able to explain to skeptics what is happening is real high on the list. A lot to the time only one core is in use. I would like to be able to have Excel run all it wants to. There is almost always an ideal core. Note: The VB version uses 85% CPU and can do the job in under a second. I can live with what I have but good tunning should be able to cut a full minute off the time. Setting the priority higher moves the thread up the CPU queue but if there is no queue that does not help much. Having the thread move out of a CPU only to be moved into an other CPU because there are no other threads waiting to run does not help matters. Thanks for your comments.
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