How To Simulate Lower CPU Processor Machines For Browser Testing

Question

We have some users which are using lower-CPU powered machines and they\'re encountering slow response times using our web application. Is there any way for me to do testing

Answer 1

Most new CPUs multiplier can easily be lowered (Intel: Speedstep, AMD: PowerNow!). This is used to save power. With RMclock you can manually adjust your multiplier and thus lower your frequency and make your pc slower. I use this tool myself so I can tell you that it works.

http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

Answer 2

Another slight option in addition to those above is to boot windows in a lower resource config. Go to the start menu,, select run and type MSCONFIG. You can go to the boot tab, click on advanced options and limit the memory and number of of processsors. It's not as robust as the above, but it does give you another option.

Answer 3

Isak Savo'sanswer works, but can be a bit finicky, as the modern tpl is going to try and limit cpu load as much as possible. When I tested it out, It was hard (though possible with some testing) to consistently get the types of cpu usages I wanted.

Then I remembered, http://www.cpukiller.com/, which does this already. Highly recommended. As an aside, I found this util from playing old 90s games on modern machines, back when frame rate was pegged to cpu clock time, making playing them on modern computers way too fast. Great utility.

Answer 4

The virtual machine Bochs(pronounced boxes) allows you to set a instructions per second directive. It's probably the slowest emulator out there as it is though...

Answer 5

Create some virtual machines.

You can use VirtualPC or VirtualBox both are free.

Answer 6

Lowering the CPU clock doesn't always give expected results.

Newer CPUs feature architecture improvements which make them more efficient on an equvialent clock basis than older chips. Incidentally, because of this virtual machines are a bad way of testing performance for "older" tech as well.

Your best bet is to simply buy a couple of older machines. Using similar RAM (types and amounts), processor, motherboard chipsets, hard drives, and video cards. All of which feed into the total performance of the machine itself.

I bring the other components up because changing just one of them can have an impact on even browser performance. A prime example is memory. If your clients are constrained to something like 512MB of RAM, the machines could be performing a lot of hard drive access for VM swaps, even for just running the browser. In this situation downgrading the clock speed on your processor while still retaining your 2GB (assuming) of RAM would still not perform anywhere near the same even if everything else was equal.