NetWorx greatly loads CPU

Started by Vasili Melnikau

Vasili Melnikau

NetWorx greatly loads CPU   17 May 2016, 20:05

Networx v.5.5. On a fast Internet connection while downloading a large file Networx greatly loads CPU.
Example:
Speed Internet 50Mbit connection. Loading a large 10GB file size through the application Torrent.
CPU Load application Torrent - 12% -17%
CPU Load Networx application - 22% -28%
Why such a large CPU load application Networx?
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Networx greatly loads CPU   17 May 2016, 21:37

Most likely you have the Ignore LAN traffic within the LAN option turned on. In this mode NetWorx has to analyse every data packet to determine whether it's local or not and attribute it to an application. Obviously thousands of packets per second require significant CPU power to be processed.
Vasili Melnikau

Re: Networx greatly loads CPU   17 May 2016, 22:16

Excellent!
It really helped!
Thank you!

Re: Networx greatly loads CPU   08 January 2017, 13:40

I know this is a pretty old thread, but since I ran into the same problem and have some follow up questions I'm going to hijack it.

Has anything done to improve the performance of "Ignore local traffic"? (I guess not, since v5.5.5 shows the same behavior)

...so the (not so serious) question is, have you tried to make it faster? Or is it winpcap's fault? For me it uses 10% CPU at 2mb/s, not sure how many packets that is, maybe 5k? I ran cfosspeed for a while to the per app counting... their driver/app was maybe using 1% CPU for the same amount of traffic.

But one serious question, why do I have to turn that option on to begin with? My computer (a VPS) is not even connected to a local network, so everything Networx sees counts. I tried removing all the networks to exclude, which kind of feels like being my scenario, but it didn't make a difference (maybe networx could be improved to do no packet inspection if there are networks to exclude specified?).

Curios what you think.

Regards.
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: NetWorx greatly loads CPU   10 January 2017, 15:09

I delved into this issue and the problem appears to be the in the third-party DLL that NetWorx relies upon to exclude local traffic. It definitely should not be eating 10% CPU at 2 Mb/s. Just need a few days to find out more - hopefully we'll able to fix it.

As to why you have to turn this option on separately:
  • Early releases of NetWorx monitored usage through periodic polling of network adapters. This approach is simple, stable and doesn't slow down anything.
  • Later on, as many users requested, we added a way to exclude local traffic, which required a separate component called NetFilter to intercept connections in the system and exclude unwanted ones.
  • Monitoring applications is merely a side application of NetFilter, as when we intercept connections, we know what apps made them and record them separately.
  • Because NetFilter includes a network driver, it may cause stability issues in certain circumstances, as well as high CPU usage.

Yet like I mentioned above, chances are we'll be able to improve the CPU usage - just need some time to investigate what is happening there.

Re: NetWorx greatly loads CPU   12 January 2017, 07:01

Andrew, that answer gives me hope, for now I'll keep it unchecked.
PhredE

Re: NetWorx greatly loads CPU - Latest?   13 April 2017, 16:20

How is progress on improving the efficiency of NetFilter? April 2017.
I've heard elsewhere about Networx's inordinate load on CPUs, so I'd be interested in an update.
(I don't have 'Ignore local traffic..' blacked in here, and an Applications tab on the Usage Report is missing, so maybe NetFilter didn't succeed in getting loaded.)
Update?
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: NetWorx greatly loads CPU   18 April 2017, 16:21

Sorry, not much progress with this. We've found that high CPU usage is caused by NetFilter's DLL, which servers as an interface between NetWorx and NetFilter's kernel driver.

Unfortunately due to its complexity and being a third-party product it's pretty hard to pin-point what's exactly happening there. No solution for now I am afraid.

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