If I want to just use one core for carrara and another for other apps do I just turn off the multitread option in carrara.

Or do I also need to change a setting in XP pro that I'm running also.
Thanks

Just turn off the multithread option.
It will only use one core during rendering, taking twice as long but using less memory.

Shame you can't change this during a render. Would have been nice to be able to turn on the second core when you're not doing anything else and turn it off when you need your computer for other things also.

Thanks for the help.

With a quadcore that I suspect I will one day own, it would be cool to be able to choose 3 for carrara during a render and leave one for other system funtions and apps.

I use SMP Seesaw ( http://www.mlin.net/SMPSeesaw.shtml ) to manage my dual core. SMP Seesaw Pro is a more powerful, open source version of SMP Seesaw. It provides these additional features: Support for up to 32 CPUs Control processor affinities for system services Programmatic interface for C/C++, Visual Basic, Windows Scripting Host (JScript and VBScript), etc. hope it helps!

Thanks for the info, I'll check that out :)