Programmatically find the number of cores on a machine

Question

Is there a way to determine how many cores a machine has from C/C++ in a platform-independent way? If no such thing exists, what about determining it per-platform (Windows/*

Answer 1

C++11

#include <thread>

//may return 0 when not able to detect
const auto processor_count = std::thread::hardware_concurrency();

Reference: std::thread::hardware_concurrency

---

In C++ prior to C++11, there's no portable way. Instead, you'll need to use one or more of the following methods (guarded by appropriate #ifdef lines):

• Win32

  SYSTEM_INFO sysinfo;
  GetSystemInfo(&sysinfo);
  int numCPU = sysinfo.dwNumberOfProcessors;
  

• Linux, Solaris, AIX and Mac OS X >=10.4 (i.e. Tiger onwards)

  int numCPU = sysconf(_SC_NPROCESSORS_ONLN);
  

• FreeBSD, MacOS X, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc.

  int mib[4];
  int numCPU;
  std::size_t len = sizeof(numCPU); 
  
  /* set the mib for hw.ncpu */
  mib[0] = CTL_HW;
  mib[1] = HW_AVAILCPU;  // alternatively, try HW_NCPU;
  
  /* get the number of CPUs from the system */
  sysctl(mib, 2, &numCPU, &len, NULL, 0);
  
  if (numCPU < 1) 
  {
      mib[1] = HW_NCPU;
      sysctl(mib, 2, &numCPU, &len, NULL, 0);
      if (numCPU < 1)
          numCPU = 1;
  }
  

• HPUX

  int numCPU = mpctl(MPC_GETNUMSPUS, NULL, NULL);
  

• IRIX

  int numCPU = sysconf(_SC_NPROC_ONLN);
  

• Objective-C (Mac OS X >=10.5 or iOS)

  NSUInteger a = [[NSProcessInfo processInfo] processorCount];
  NSUInteger b = [[NSProcessInfo processInfo] activeProcessorCount];
  

Answer 2

For Win32:

While GetSystemInfo() gets you the number of logical processors, use GetLogicalProcessorInformationEx() to get the number of physical processors.

Answer 3

OpenMP is supported on many platforms (including Visual Studio 2005) and it offers a

int omp_get_num_procs();

function that returns the number of processors/cores available at the time of call.

Answer 4

Windows (x64 and Win32) and C++11

The number of groups of logical processors sharing a single processor core. (Using GetLogicalProcessorInformationEx, see GetLogicalProcessorInformation as well)

size_t NumberOfPhysicalCores() noexcept {

    DWORD length = 0;
    const BOOL result_first = GetLogicalProcessorInformationEx(RelationProcessorCore, nullptr, &length);
    assert(GetLastError() == ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER);

    std::unique_ptr< uint8_t[] > buffer(new uint8_t[length]);
    const PSYSTEM_LOGICAL_PROCESSOR_INFORMATION_EX info = 
            reinterpret_cast< PSYSTEM_LOGICAL_PROCESSOR_INFORMATION_EX >(buffer.get());

    const BOOL result_second = GetLogicalProcessorInformationEx(RelationProcessorCore, info, &length);
    assert(result_second != FALSE);

    size_t nb_physical_cores = 0;
    size_t offset = 0;
    do {
        const PSYSTEM_LOGICAL_PROCESSOR_INFORMATION_EX current_info =
            reinterpret_cast< PSYSTEM_LOGICAL_PROCESSOR_INFORMATION_EX >(buffer.get() + offset);
        offset += current_info->Size;
        ++nb_physical_cores;
    } while (offset < length);
        
    return nb_physical_cores;
}

Note that the implementation of NumberOfPhysicalCores is IMHO far from trivial (i.e. "use GetLogicalProcessorInformation or GetLogicalProcessorInformationEx"). Instead it is rather subtle if one reads the documentation (explicitly present for GetLogicalProcessorInformation and implicitly present for GetLogicalProcessorInformationEx) at MSDN.

The number of logical processors. (Using GetSystemInfo)

size_t NumberOfSystemCores() noexcept {
    SYSTEM_INFO system_info;
    ZeroMemory(&system_info, sizeof(system_info));
    
    GetSystemInfo(&system_info);
    
    return static_cast< size_t >(system_info.dwNumberOfProcessors);
}

Note that both methods can easily be converted to C/C++98/C++03.

Answer 5

(Almost) Platform Independent function in c-code

#ifdef _WIN32
#include <windows.h>
#elif MACOS
#include <sys/param.h>
#include <sys/sysctl.h>
#else
#include <unistd.h>
#endif

int getNumCores() {
#ifdef WIN32
    SYSTEM_INFO sysinfo;
    GetSystemInfo(&sysinfo);
    return sysinfo.dwNumberOfProcessors;
#elif MACOS
    int nm[2];
    size_t len = 4;
    uint32_t count;

    nm[0] = CTL_HW; nm[1] = HW_AVAILCPU;
    sysctl(nm, 2, &count, &len, NULL, 0);

    if(count < 1) {
        nm[1] = HW_NCPU;
        sysctl(nm, 2, &count, &len, NULL, 0);
        if(count < 1) { count = 1; }
    }
    return count;
#else
    return sysconf(_SC_NPROCESSORS_ONLN);
#endif
}

Answer 6

If you have assembly-language access, you can use the CPUID instruction to get all sorts of information about the CPU. It's portable between operating systems, though you'll need to use manufacturer-specific information to determine how to find the number of cores. Here's a document that describes how to do it on Intel chips, and page 11 of this one describes the AMD specification.