Determining CPU features / cache organization from userland

[Mike Silbersack]

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003, Joseph Koshy wrote:

> Hi -hackers,
>
> I'm looking for ways that a userland program can determine the CPU
> features available on an SMP machine -- processor model, stepping
> numbers, supported features, cache organization etc.
>
> For example, on some x86 processors the CPUID instruction could be
> used to determine some of these parameters, but using this instruction
> in an SMP context is a little tricky since we do not know which CPU
> gets to execute the instruction.

At least in the Intel world, multiprocessor systems are _always_ supposed
to have matching processor steppings, so the reliability of the
information should be very good indeed.

Mike "Silby" Silbersack