[Timmons]

There are a number of reasons this is not openly available. Just a few: - It may lock the programmer into a specific CPU - The CPU cache/pipeline is less generic than you might think. Making setting a standard way to change it from within a program problematic. - Multiple programs may be running at the same time. Having the a program dictate cache behaviour would effect all running applications. - Arbitrary changes to behaviour would have performance implications when the change is made. In a multiple application situation that could mean flipflopping behaviour.

Generally though the benefit of the manual control wouldn't be worth the cost/risk/loss of platform support for most applications as CPU behaviour is very good and it would probably be cheaper to just upgrade to a more expensive CPU than to spend the time on developing improvements to the algorithm.

In the rare case where you do need specific behaviour and it is worth while it would be worth speaking to the vendors rather than doing it yourself.