The High Precision Event Timer is a hardware timer used in personal computers. It was developed jointly by Intel and Microsoft and has been incorporated in PC chipsets since circa 2005. Formerly referred to by Intel as a Multimedia Timer, the term HPET was selected to avoid confusion with the multimedia timers software feature 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 HAL (hardware abstraction layer), can also use the processor's Time Stamp Counter (TSC) or Power Management Timer (PMTIMER), together with the RTC to provide operating system features that would, in later Windows versions, be provided by the HPET hardware. Confusingly, such XP systems quote "HPET" connectivity in the device driver manager even though the Intel HPET device is not being used.
Read more about High Precision Event Timer: Features, Applications, Comparison To Predecessors, Compatibility, Problems
Famous quotes containing the words high, precision and/or event:
“That high All-seer which I dallied with
Hath turned my feigned prayer on my head,
And given in earnest what I begged in jest.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that theyll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (18601904)
“All the philosophy, therefore, in the world, and all the religion, which is nothing but a species of philosophy, will never be able to carry us beyond the usual course of experience, or give us measures of conduct and behaviour different from those which are furnished by reflections on common life. No new fact can ever be inferred from the religious hypothesis; no event foreseen or foretold; no reward or punishment expected or dreaded, beyond what is already known by practice and observation.”
—David Hume (17111776)