Description
The High Precision Event Timer ( HPET ) is a hardware timer available in modern x86-compatible personal computers. Compared to older types of timers available in the x86 architecture, HPET allows more efficient processing of highly timing-sensitive applications, such as multimedia playback and OS task switching. It was developed jointly by Intel and Microsoft and has been incorporated in PC chipsets since 2005. Formerly referred to by Intel as a Multimedia Timer , the term HPET was selected to avoid confusion with the software multimedia timers introduced in the MultiMedia Extensions to Windows 3.0.
Older operating systems that do not support a hardware HPET device can only use older timing facilities, such as the programmable interval timer (PIT) or the real-time clock (RTC). Windows XP, when fitted with the latest hardware abstraction layer (HAL), can also use the processor's Time Stamp Counter (TSC), or ACPI Power Management Timer (ACPI PMTIMER), together with the RTC to provide operating system features that would, in later Windows versions, be provided by the HPET hardware. Confusingly, such Windows XP systems quote "HPET" connectivity in the device driver manager even though the Intel HPET device is not being used.
High Precision Event Timer News
Tags
Collections
No collections available for this topic.
