Affinity mask

An affinity mask is a set of numbers that tell your computer which processor cores it should use to run a program. It's like giving instructions to your computer to make sure it is running a program the way you want it to. Let's say you have a four-core computer. You can tell your computer to use the first, third, and fourth processors for a program by giving it a "mask" with the numbers 1000. That tells your computer to use the first, third, and fourth processors, but leave the second one alone.