In defence of multi-core

Originally Posted by Warrior_Rocker
If for some reason your application needs to execute 8 instructions at the same instant, in the near future it could.

Yes, point taken. However, as I understand it the software needs to be coded to take advantage of this. As far as I'm aware this is difficult to do, and moreover isn't being done very often yet. Adobe's Photoshop has a multi-core adaptation, but aside from future gaming I haven't heard of the expansion yet. Does WinXP have a multi-core extension? I'm sure Vista must have some form of multi-core implementation, but I read that only the enthiusiasts are going to be buying into that anytime soon anyway.

I wonder when developers will realise that people are using multi-core CPUs and code for them. As for the technology itself, I believe it is an interesting way forward, the idea of performing physics calculations/AI calculations/etc on seperate cores is quite entertaining. But then I hit a mental wall again by thinking "but it needs to be coded to do that".

Originally Posted by smoguzbenjamin
Does WinXP have a multi-core extension? I'm sure Vista must have some form of multi-core implementation,

From a pure, virgin, clean boot of Windows, looking at Task Manager, all of those modules active do different things for the OS. Likewise, they can all be punted to different cores. Some of them might be multithreaded in such a way to use two or more cores themselves, but even if not, thats one type of multithreading described in the Valve article. Vista would be no different, but if I'm not mistaken more work did indeed go to making it more multi-core friendly, not to mention the innovation of offloading GUI tasks to the processor that does graphics best; the video card.

I'm sorry but I don't aggree. Multi cores are great for AP's like F@H and for multi tasking to some extent (although I multi task fine with much more modest hardware). But software which has in recent times taken advantage of new hardware first, games. Just dosen't scale well from more than one or two cores as most of the code needs to be computed in a particular order and it's an absolutle nightmare to calculate bits on different cores and manage to get it all in the right place at the right time. (sorry if I'm not very elequant here I am a big noob at programing). untill some thought has been put into making it easier to right multi threaded software (Eg. some kind of uber compiler that can convert single threaded code into multi threaded code with the click of a button and with a performance inprovenment) then I don't think they will be a worthwhile purchase. I say this because even years after release the fastest single core cpu's are almost as fast as there duel and quad core bretherin despite the more than fourfold theoretical increase in power.

Originally Posted by Ringold
On 2ghz 'by definition' being 2x as fast as 1ghz on the same architecture: I'd challenge you to find out, as I did indirectly through undervolting my laptop, to pick an application, such as WinRAR, or a benchmark such as SuperPi, and test your CPU at stock and then again by dropping the multiplier by half. The results for me weren't 50% of original performance. Playing with the FSB instead leads to even more skewed results.

Well, a 2x as "fast" (ignoring Mhz for the moment) or "slow" CPU does not directly translate to 2x overall computer performance. Remember, the CPU is only one piece of the puzzle. Time is also spent in disk access (hard drives), accessing memory (memory speeds) etc. There are a myriad of other factors/components that contribute to overall task speed. In order to slow the entire computer down, every single component would have to be slowed down by 2x also.

Which is why it becomes harder to isolate the impact of improvements, and specific benchmarks have to be created/used for just that sort of thing. Try to isolate every other component except for the CPU for example. But it's tricky.

So the Winrar results in particular, which definitely would use both disk-access and memory access, are not necessarily going to be the best example, in either direction. You'd have to know exactly how much of each it requires. That doesn't neccessarily disprove your point, it just makes things alot less cut and dry :(

"I wonder when developers will realise that people are using multi-core CPUs and code for them."

Alas if only it were as simple as that. It's not merely a case of "code your program to support multi-threads and you instantly have all the benefits of multi-core". Ignoring the fact that it's rather difficult to go concurrent/paralelize, it's alot of work, conceptually difficult, and very easy to make serious mistakes. It's often *impossible*. Thats a harsh word of course, and it would probably be better put as "not worth the minimal benefit your application would see". But the reality is certain (alot) of tasks simply do not lend themselves well or at all, to the concurrent/parallel strategy. You simply just can't break them up into smaller chunks that can be completed at the same time. As Wil put from a previous article, they are inherrently "serial". The traditional game/3d rendering tasks are largely like that, and so are a great many more.

Not to get into the nitty gritty, but it's very often the case that it's not simply a matter of "having your programmers write/design multithreaded". It's just that it doesn't actually apply at all.

Aggies

Originally Posted by aggies11

"I wonder when developers will realise that people are using multi-core CPUs and code for them."

Alas if only it were as simple as that. It's not merely a case of "code your program to support multi-threads and you instantly have all the benefits of multi-core". Ignoring the fact that it's rather difficult to go concurrent/paralelize, it's alot of work, conceptually difficult, and very easy to make serious mistakes. It's often *impossible*. Thats a harsh word of course, and it would probably be better put as "not worth the minimal benefit your application would see". But the reality is certain (alot) of tasks simply do not lend themselves well or at all, to the concurrent/parallel strategy. You simply just can't break them up into smaller chunks that can be completed at the same time. As Wil put from a previous article, they are inherrently "serial". The traditional game/3d rendering tasks are largely like that, and so are a great many more.

Not to get into the nitty gritty, but it's very often the case that it's not simply a matter of "having your programmers write/design multithreaded". It's just that it doesn't actually apply at all.

Aggies

This gets more confusing every time I think about it. If most computer programs are of a serial nature, why is everyone so hyped up about all this? Sure, running physics calculations on an extra core is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a PhysX PPU (which has little to no support games-wise), but apparently no-one is going to use this technology because it is a serious challenge software/concept-wise. That, and I haven't seen any major game except for GRAW and UT2007 make use of the PPU tech.

Right that settles it for me, I am personally opting for the fast single-core CPU, I don't convert AVIs to MPGs while playing games and recording stuff off of TV anyway.

Originally Posted by smoguzbenjamin
but apparently no-one is going to use this technology because it is a serious challenge software/concept-wise. That, and I haven't seen any major game except for GRAW and UT2007 make use of the PPU tech.

Right that settles it for me, I am personally opting for the fast single-core CPU, I don't convert AVIs to MPGs while playing games and recording stuff off of TV anyway.

But.. but..

Okay, future proof, a single core apparently won't be able to touch a game like Alan Wake, and would probably have a rough time in a game like Supreme Commander, so thats coming in a time frame that should really be considered for a purchase made today, since to be honest at most price points you have to *try* to avoid dual core purchases..

But outside the game realm.. Except for Word, I can't think of a category of application that doesn't have a product in existence, on the market today, that doesn't take advantage of dual core.

Compression: WinRAR, 7z
Video work: What *doesnt*?
Audio work: Again, what doesn't use it?
Image work: Photoshop does
Programming: Most compilers are
Burners/Rippers: Again, most are

There's other categories I'm coming up short on that use CPU time I'm sure (QuickPar or IceECC, DosBox, Maya, povray) use SMP/SMT, but again, if you look, I'd bet an app exists that uses it. And likewise, I bet its also freeware, heh.

And the gains aren't trivial.. I wouldn't go quad core, certainly, but on AMDs the benefit from that second core is especially tangible, heck, even when just navigating the 'Start' menu.

You're climbing a pretty steep mountain trying to pick on dual-core rather than quad-core, unless your budget is extremely constrained. Extremely.

I for one have seen a huge improvement in performance when moving to a dual core system. I am in a fairly minority case though where multi cpu/cluster computing was one of the main considerations when the software i use was beinc written. I'm talking about most engineering analysis software, both the FEA and CFD software i use is multi-threaded due to the majority of real engineering situations using either dual cpu or clusters of computers.

Originally Posted by smoguzbenjamin
This gets more confusing every time I think about it. If most computer programs are of a serial nature, why is everyone so hyped up about all this?

First off, to be fair, I'm only covering the criticisms of multi-core, I'm ignoring the benefits (there are some *gasp*!), because they've already been covered to death. My only beef is that there is a bit of "rosey coloured glasses" thingy going on when people talk about multi-core, they see all the benefit but seem to miss that there are *costs* to doing it this way?

The desktop is going multi-core, so the hype machine has started. It is being h yped up because AMD and Intel won't sell many chips with a slogan like "Multi core - better than single core, sometimes"® They will have to extole it's virtues, because it's their bottom line.

We are seeing these chips because they are cheaper/easier to make/develop. Plain and simple. It costs $100(CAD) more for an AMD X2 3800+, than an AMD A64 3200+ (2x2GHz vs 1x2GHz). Yet if the 2x2GHz=4GHz math holds true, your getting a 2GHz chip for only $100 more. Doubling the performance! At such low prices! The world just isnt' that wonderfull a place. When it giveth with one hand, it taketh with the other ;). Multi-core chips take advantage (require!) of the fact that you can do two things at the same time. Thats twice the performance, as long as the thing you are doing can be broken up in such a way that you can do "two(or more)" subsections of it at the same time. If your computing problem (program) can be broken up in that sort of way, then you're laughing. If not (a large chunk of tasks fall into this category), then the benefits of multi-core are largely lost to you.

All this being said, I have a dual core chip on the way (x2 4400+). There are benefits. An extra core never hurts :) But I know where it is realistic to expect improvements, and where it's not. n slower cores are not the same as a single faster core. But they typically are cheaper :)

Aggies

The reason there are "rose-covered-glasses" going around is due to the fact that we have such a bright horizon in front of us. Until recently gains have been fairly linear in terms of performance. Now we are seeing our gains doubled by adding cores instead of ghz BUT only when programs are coded for the extra codes. that is why quadcore is so interesting. To programmers it didn't matter if they coded for dualcore. Why would they when so many users still used single cores? Now with intel's new release, developers have been told what they need to do to make their programs run better. They are being told to get ready for multiple cores which will net the most gains. We are already seeing the gains in other products as well.

Take the X-box 360 which has 3 cores running at something like 3ghz each. A single xbox that costs only $300 can run games with similar graphics to $2000 computer. Multiple cores is the future and intel is forceing the development upon software, and hardware designers so that everyone can catch up.

I personally don't think that a quadcore will game much better than my 3800x2 but when it does you can bet that I will upgrade. Hopefully by the time they figure out multi-core gameing somebody will have released an 8-core super processor than only needs 65w to run. That will make this young man smile for days.

Not to say it won't be useful eventually, but its also a marketers wet dream.

'Lets see, what would sell more than a dual core chip? A quad core?! That's like, a whole TWO more!'

Insert comedy ka-ching eyes here

It is indeed a marketers dream. But as was pointed out in Wil's linked videocast thingy, there'll be a point at which the controlling of the chip, the limited FSB, the limited other components would get in the way and it just wouldn't be worth adding more cores. I can't see that with todays architecture 20 cores on one chip could be usefull, the infrastructure that supports so many individuals just isn't there. That's gonna be the real limitation in my opinion.

Intel say they can do 80 cores on one chip in 5 years and I wouldn't be at all surprised. What I will be surprised at is if they can make the systems those 80 cores have to interact with support 80 individual cores doing 80 individual things with 80 seperate needs all going to the same ram across the same FSB through the same northbridge. We're gonna need processors just to control and process our cpu's requests. Thats the hardware wall I think, and that's what'll slow down this beast in the medium term I reckon.

As for the whole programs in serial thing. I guess that's the case for now. But the world has been programing mostly in serial for pretty much the history of PC's. Given the speed at which the computer industry and technology advances, I don't think we should expect to wait long before we see some real advances. Perhaps programming languages designed with the express intent of making parellism work, or just a greater understanding of what can be split up and how to make things work cohesively.

Guys Multi-Cores is nothing new though. Its just in a nice small package. Super Computers have always been multiple cores with a **** load of ram its just that now it doesn't take a room to fit these computers and in the future a super computer with 80 machines running in parralell will be in the size of your hand. Sound familiar like the old computers that filled a room to do 10 times 10 and now cellphones are more powerfull then them. Its exactly what is said that the high end brings everything up with it so as the high ends get better the norm gets better.

I agree, 20 cores with a 1066mhz FSB will mean just a bunch of useless cores with heavy loads, but that suggests technology will advance in numbers of cores but no where else.

Already, AMD has left behind the traditional FSB which Intel still uses. Likewise, it has an integrated memory controller. Two little steps, but steps that show changing parts of the overall architecture isn't impossible. I can imagine that 80 core chip 5 years out using something like photons to shuttle data around, with something equally bizarre yet already demonstrated technology like holographic memory for cache. In 5 years, perhaps we'll also be starting to see affordable, reliable solid-state disks.. at least within 10 years or so. And even further out past that 80 core chip, quantum computing gets advanced a wee bit with each passing year.

So I suppose my thought is that the entire platform will grow up with these parts. Competition between AMD and Intel assures that technology will be advanced at all costs, because if one leaves some dusty old hanger-on like electrons and starts using photons, to significant advantage, then the other would assuredly be punished in the market. And like I said a moment ago, all those technologies has been a professors playtoy in some university lab for months and years, and some crazy things are well on their way to commercialization.

Of course, the preferred path for the future would be to ask La Forge how the hell the Enterprise-E's computer cores operate, preferably complete with schematics. I'd say to ask Scotty, but unfortunately, he's in the Big Risa in The Sky, so to speak. Could ask, say, Tucker, but I'd rather that whole crew just go away and never have happened. He can keep his computer and 'phase pistol' tech to himself..

Edit: Though Linda Park can tell me all she wants about communications any time.

Good article (as usual) ;)

For some strange reason I'm reminded of the introduction of the automobile: When they first came out they were very noisy, you had to be your own mechanic because they were unreliable, the roads weren't really built for them... Quite frankly the average person was better off with horses. The same is true today - by the time quad core is practical there will be a new CPUs & motherboards and the ones from today will be outdated - just like the original automobiles were outdated by the time cars became practical for the average person.

Don't get me wrong, I and many of the people here, would get quad cores if we could afford them - just like many of us might have been early adopters of automobiles if we had been there then - but I currently wouldn't recommend quad core to most people nor would I ever (well, seldom anyway) recommend buying "for the future". - CDs and DVDs once were a "thing of the future" but those who waited got better players with more features at less than half the price of the simpler early models.

So, here I sit with my dual core 64bit CPU running 32bit software that mostly uses only one core. My problem with pushing quad core is not in the quad core itself but in the untapped potential of the system I already have.

Great article. What I have seen over the last 20 years is very much along the lines of the movie Field of Dreams. If you build they will come. As long as hardware, regardless whether its CPU, VPU, Memory, or Buss architeture, continue to make advances the programmers, users, and system builders will find a way to utilize those advances till they reach the point of needing more.

I agree 100% the only time something is not needed is if the performance oustrips demand, this never seems to be a problem with most hardware I mean software will come along to fully take advantage of the multiple cores in the near future. The only issue where I'm on the wall is data storage, it seems areal density of harddrives are going up at a rate that outpaces the needs of consumers, I.E 400+gig hard drives, I'm not saying more space is a bad thing, the only time it coudl be negative is if a HDD gets so cluttered finding that picture you took 3 years ago could be one of 10,000 possible pictures. It's more that I don't think the average user needs 400gigs of HDD space, I spose with the high def content we'll see a bump up in data size but even then the average user won't be needing 500+ up to a terabyte of storage, I'm more concerned about redudancy and speed

my 2 cents

Correct me if I'm wrong but part of the problem I see with multi-core at the moment is the Windows process scheduling. This is especially apparent with Intel chips which use the FSB to transfer data between the cores. The problem here is that windows will attempt to run a single thread on both cores by switching cores every 1/50 seconds (or whatever). The result being that that the CPU is constantly using most of the FSB to find data from the cache of the other core that has just been calculated. I have noticed that by setting the affinity of a process through task manager to one core my whole computer speeds up (sometimes quite significantly). I can only imagine that this problem would be worse if there are 4 cores.

However ignoring that problem I think that multi-core CPU's are definitely the way to go at the moment.

Originally Posted by Fozzy
My only issue with development is with it's direction. Yes both intel and AMD are makeing faster chips. We all know this. I'm worried about power consumption. The fact that only two years ago a solid 300w psu could run a top of the line gaming system just baffles me. Now if you want all of the bells and whistles you need at least a 750w psu and preferably a Killowatt psu. I'd like to see architecture that makes sense and diminishes power consumption. I don't mind buying a bigger PSU but hat I do mind is when Graphics cards jump from needing 65 to 165w in less than 2 years. I just think things are getting a little out of control.

Errr...no, you don't. I'm sure that the PSU manufacturers would love that we believed that, but it's not true.

A good 350W - 400W PSU can easily power most demanding single GPU gaming systems with little effort. (the almighty X360 draws less than 180W IIRC and it has 3 PowerPC cores and a next gen ATI GPU.)

For dual GPU configurations, you can do with a efficient 600WPSU (I used a Tacens VALEO 420W to power a X2 4200 + 2x7800GT rig and it run perfectly fine...). I bet you could even power it with a 500W, providing it had 85% efficiency or so, and good 24v rails. I agree it's too much, but it's far from 1000W.

This generation (DX10) is going to get ugly regarding power consumption, and still, I very much doubt you'll need anything bigger than 700W...much less for single GPU configurations...and as Tim says, it will get better the generation after this.

Originally Posted by Iago
Errr...no, you don't. I'm sure that the PSU manufacturers would love that we believed that, but it's not true.

Perhaps you have never measured your systems power draw but often its not wise to run near peak load on a PSU for prolonged periods, most of the PSU manuals tell you this, suggesting that people will be fine with a PSU on its limit with 'most demanding single GPU gaming systems' (like 350w-400w mentioned) is lunacy, as different computer parts consume different levels of power and you need to spec accordingly, the efficiency part relates to what is pulled from the wall not how good a PSU is at providing power to your system, I have a dual GPU setup (7900s which are more efficent than the old 7800s) with an X2 and peak load when gaming can spike to 630w (measured from wall socket) this is using an FSP epsilon 700w with 85% efficiency putting my system in the region of 535w, the same system but with 7800GTX512s (approx 40w per card extra when OC'ed a touch) blew an OCZ Powerstream SLI jobby that was 520W or something like that which can handle a 630w peak after very little use, people told me it should be fine and its just PSU manufacturers trying to sell kit, a lot of people also said stuff like I run such and such 500W PSU witha similar setup and its fine, all I can say is good luck to you, if you intend to buy any next gen kit you will want to make sure you have the appropriate supporting hardware and a PSU is an important part of this.

Originally Posted by sandys
Perhaps you have never measured your systems power draw but often its not wise to run near peak load on a PSU for prolonged periods, most of the PSU manuals tell you this, suggesting that people will be fine with a PSU on its limit with 'most demanding single GPU gaming systems' (like 350w-400w mentioned) is lunacy, as different computer parts consume different levels of power and you need to spec accordingly, the efficiency part relates to what is pulled from the wall not how good a PSU is at providing power to your system

This article is from the "silent PC" point of view, but still, it's a great read and should help to dismiss many of those PSU myths:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html

Our own experience indicates that despite all the new power hungry components such as >75W video cards and >120W CPUs, it is still rare to find a desktop computer than draws much more than 200W DC under typical demanding applications. Around 300W DC looks to be about the highest power draw from a single CPU full-bore high end system at this time (Feb 2005). Although some headroom is always good to have, there seems little question that consumers are being persuaded to pay for power capacity that is never used

There are well-established standards for measuring and rating HDD capacity, an engine's horsepower, or the heat generated by a furnace... but not one for how much power a PSU can deliver. There are so many cases of people with "450W" PSUs having power stability issues running a system that can't possibly draw more than 150W. And "300W" units that keep running where the "450W" units are faltering.

A counterpoint is AMD's system builder's guide, which suggests higher numbers: up to ~180W DC for a typical system and ~250W DC for a high performance system, but these numbers are obtained by adding the maximum power rating for each component, then taking 20% off to account for real-world conditions. It is almost impossible for any application to demand 80% of maximum power draw from each component simultaneously. Intel's PSU recommendations are similar.

Without getting into technical details, the nature of a switching power supply is that it delivers as much power as is demanded by the components. This means that when installed in a PC whose components require 200W, a 400W PSU and a 250W PSU will each deliver 200W. Does this mean the 400W is coasting while the 250W is struggling? Not if they are both rated honestly and if they have the same efficiency

Some relevant quotes from the HOW MUCH POWER IS ENOUGH? section of said article, for those without time to read it (it's quite long).

Here to can calculate expected PSU needs for most systems:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

For a gaming system, with a Core 6600 and a 7950 GX2 (quite high end if I may say), 2 SATA HDD, 2 Gb Ram, 1 DVD/DVDRW drive, 4 USB devices and 4 fans, they recommend 345W PSU wattage.

Now, I know that if you overclock heavily, put water cooling, x1900XTX in crossfire and pimp the rig with as many neons as a casino in Las Vegas, you can easily get outrageous power requirements, but that's not the norm, not even on high-end systems. Certainly, someone doing that is likely to be aware of what his power requirements are and if you are getting so much hardware, an extra 50-100€ in PSU wattage is probably irrelevant...but all this talk about 700W PSUs being standard, is an exaggeration. The kind of people, even on "enthusiast" sites that nowadays needs anything over a 500W PSU is very, very rare.

[edit]
My own X2 4200 + 2Gb RAM + 2 HDD + x1900XT... has a recommended PSU watagge of 350W (at 100% Load for the PSU, not average). With 2 7800GT in SLI I get 365W. Hardly earth shattering...

Originally Posted by Iago


Here to can calculate expected PSU needs for most systems:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

I'm building a new conroe-based PC in an Antec P180 - I tried the above calculator using my most optimistic scenario (ie. kentsfield plus SLI plus as much crap as I thought that I could fit in the case) and the max rating was 534W. A more realistic value was around 420W....

And hence I'll look for a 520-600W PSU to provide a bit of a buffer. It will be 3 years before I can conceivably require more, and personally, I think power requirements will go down for many components in the same way as it did for Conroe...

CJM

Great article. I think intel have made a good move making quad core available on the dual core socket. The one problem with withe K8L I can see at the moment is if people are waiting for it but need to upgrade now, what can they do, as far as I have read there is no mention of what socket the K8L will be on which also means there is no point buying a kick ass mobo for a AM2 socket and finding that the mobo will not support K8L, which then kinda makes the upgrading a bit fruitless if you were hoping just to swap the CPU. But, quad core is defo the way to go! maybe not for all out gaming performance but that said, once games are multicore coded this probably wont be such an issue.

Not a bad defense, except for one little flaw: most software and operating systems can take advantage of a multi processor computer right now. MS Word is multi-threaded already, has been for some time (as has most software applications of any consequence on Windows, Linux/Unix and OSX). Of what benefit would this be to the typical Word user? Have them scroll down through a document with any embedded objects such as images or speadsheets - they'll see the difference.

Or have the user viewing a Word doc in one window while they are backing up their hard drive to a CD/DVD, or installing software, or playing music. All common things for non-power users to do (well, except maybe the backup which nobody ever seems to do - but should).

Browsing? With multi-tabbed, multi-window browsing you can easily wind up with a number of browsing sessions open that are having to handle Flash advertisements/etc. which take up CPU cycles - especially with Firefox which tends to be a CPU hog in that regard. No, it's not going to download the content much faster (if at all), but it may make a difference.

The point is that most apps are now multi-threaded, some quite "heavily" (i.e., make good use of threads to improve performance) and have been for quite a while. This has been the most common complaint I have heard; that software, including operating systems, isn't multi-threaded and won't yet take advantage of multi-processors. That is patently a false assertion and betrays a totally inadequate understanding of how applications and operating systems work, and have worked for some time.

I personally think that 4 cores are about minimum for my purposes for the near future. If I could get a laptop with 4 cores I would. I do development work, so having my IDE (a real memory and CPU hog), SQL Server, Tomcat, my server app and my client app open all at the same time could easily occupy much of the attention a 4 CPU system could give it. Then add to that my email client, Word open to read the requirements document, the bug tracking app, Firefox with a dozen windows open to read various API documents, etc., and yes, I am starting to get there - not to mention having iTunes open in another window, especially if I have the real time spectrum analysis visualizer running. Yes, I have multiple monitors, and no 3 monitors is not overkill - 4 would be the limit for me though.

That said, yeah, I am a power user, but even my mom, who is not a power user, will make good use of her new dual core laptop reading email and browsing the internet while Adobe Elements is processing and printing photos of her grandchildren.

So, don't knock it until you've tried it. I for one welcome as many cores as I can get. I'll always be able to find a use for them.

512 Cores anyone?

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/11/06/japan_512-core_co-pro/

Couple of questions on K8L...

Is it going to be socket 940 (Opteron as opposed to AM2) and is it going to need DDR2 memory?

AMD has been really good about keeping their server hardware reverse compatible and I'm hopeing I can go to K8L with my existing Mobo.

And next time you're in the Greater Seattle Urban Sprawl, drop me an email and I'll buy you a beer! ;)