# Kodi and core count



## GoFigureItOut (Oct 31, 2016)

Just out of curiosity, is it possible to determine how many cores or thread a program uses by looking at the source code? I know it may be possible for a programmer, because they know what to look for.

The reason why I'm asking is because someone said that Kodi has only been programmed to use two cores. That just doesn't sound right. A media center program only able to use two cores in 2016


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## Jetster (Oct 31, 2016)

Assuming your talking about the windows version I really doubt it. But this is a question for Kodi  forums


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## alucasa (Oct 31, 2016)

Off topic

OP really needs to change his username...


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## Jetster (Oct 31, 2016)

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=239630&highlight=How+many+cores

I've run Kodi for windows on a single core, dual core as well as i7. It behaves the same on all three. No need to be concerned about resources at all.

I've tried many media organizers also nothing is better than Kodi, I've tried Plex, Media Portal, Windows, and many others. Always come back, been using it for 10 years now


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## GoFigureItOut (Oct 31, 2016)

alucasa said:


> Off topic
> 
> OP really needs to change his username...





alucasa said:


> Off topic
> 
> OP really needs to change his username...




Well, I tried figuring it out myself. I was unable to, so I posted a thread here. Cut me some slack.... I'm stupid


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## rtwjunkie (Oct 31, 2016)

GoFigureItOut said:


> Well, I tried figuring it out myself. I was unable to, so I posted a thread here. Cut me some slack.... I'm stupid



Don't get down on yourself.  On Topic, I think many media programs are just fine in single or double thread.  Them and hardware seem to be just fine.


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## alucasa (Oct 31, 2016)

GoFigureItOut said:


> Well, I tried figuring it out myself. I was unable to, so I posted a thread here. Cut me some slack.... I'm stupid



I wasn't attacking you. I just find your username ironic and funny. That's all.


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## Kursah (Oct 31, 2016)

GoFigureItOut said:


> Well, I tried figuring it out myself. I was unable to, so I posted a thread here. Cut me some slack.... I'm stupid



Nah you're not stupid. Learning how to find some answers is an art and speciality all in its own. Takes time and practice, don't beat yourself up. Take it in jest, accept the humility of people finding the irony of your username here and your last several threads asking for help. It's more silly, but doesn't detract from me wanting to help you! 

As to your question in the OP, I don't use Kodi, but do know I have a 4-core allocated VM on my home server, and I'm almost certain I've seen Plex using all available cores during heavy jobs and when doing multiple streams, I could be wrong and never have seriously tracked it...I may now that you ask about Kodi, just to see what Plex does. I would assume Kodi does similar and I would also assume that 4 threads/cores is about the limit, but 1-2 as @rtwjunkie stated is likely the case since that's all they usually need. New processors are so much more efficient at encryption/decryption and encoding/decoding than previous generations, that the devs may feel that modern CPU's are powerful enough, needing more than 1-2 cores is not necessary. Curiosity is sparked.

You know who might know about Kodi is @newtekie1. See if we can be graced with his knowledge on the topic soon! 

What are you thinking of installing Kodi on?


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## newtekie1 (Oct 31, 2016)

AFAIK, it uses 2 threads to play media back.  One thread for decoding the video and another thread for decoding the audio.  The video thread will use hardware acceleration, offloading the video decoding work to the GPU, if possible.


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## FYFI13 (Oct 31, 2016)

Kodi is capable of using at least 8 threads, just tested with i7 4790K and i3 4030U. Although with HW encoding enabled (DXVA2) CPU usage was very low and i hardly could tell how many threads it was using.


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## Jetster (Oct 31, 2016)

From the forum moderator at Kodi,

"Kodi works in conjunction with the O/S, the code isn't written to specifically address multiple cores or threads. Your O/S will handle this for you"


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## Aquinus (Nov 24, 2016)

Jetster said:


> From the forum moderator at Kodi,
> 
> "Kodi works in conjunction with the O/S, the code isn't written to specifically address multiple cores or threads. Your O/S will handle this for you"


That's a developer's way of saying, "Yeah, we use threads but, we use them as needed and they might not all be running at the same time."


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