From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 25 23:36:07 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C1CE16A41F for ; Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:36:07 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mark@mkproductions.org) Received: from ylpvm43.prodigy.net (ylpvm43-ext.prodigy.net [207.115.57.74]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 926AC43D53 for ; Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:36:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mark@mkproductions.org) Received: from pimout2-ext.prodigy.net (pimout2-int.prodigy.net [207.115.4.217]) by ylpvm43.prodigy.net (8.12.10 outbound/8.12.10) with ESMTP id j7PNaEJH025714 for ; Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:36:14 -0400 X-ORBL: [66.139.109.225] Received: from [192.168.1.25] (ppp-66-139-109-225.dsl.stlsmo.swbell.net [66.139.109.225]) by pimout2-ext.prodigy.net (8.13.4 outbound domainkey aix/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j7PNa4v2124510; Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:36:04 -0400 Message-ID: <430E55E4.9080106@mkproductions.org> Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:36:04 -0500 From: Mark Kane User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (X11/20050816) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Roland Smith References: <20050825160909.GB10134@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <430DF015.5000203@mkproductions.org> <20050825173758.GA10790@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <430E0461.3030101@mkproductions.org> <20050825181931.GE10790@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <430E105D.3080509@mkproductions.org> <20050825200838.GA18166@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <430E294C.2080207@mkproductions.org> <20050825213846.GA715@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <430E3BDB.5040600@mkproductions.org> <20050825214938.GC715@slackbox.xs4all.nl> In-Reply-To: <20050825214938.GC715@slackbox.xs4all.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Performance Issues with AMD64 3000+, 1.5GB RAM, FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:36:07 -0000 Roland Smith wrote: > On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 04:44:59PM -0500, Mark Kane wrote: >>Okay, I may try that later then. STABLE is just about done on that >>Athlon XP 2000+ machine. > > > Fingers crossed :-) Well Hmmm.... I've got -STABLE running on the 5.4-RELEASE i386 AMD Athlon XP 2000+ machine with 256MB RAM. I untar Firefox sources, and the improvement is noticeable within 3 seconds. When doing the same operation before or here on my amd64 (5.4-RELEASE) it starts freezing the screen, sound, and other things (Hard to describe the sound noise, but it sounds like a "ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-R-R-R-R-RRRR" stutter). I increased the XMMS buffer from 3000 to the value on your site (haven't done the sysctl one yet) and it made the skips that were happening during untarring reduce greatly. There are still a few skips and slight stuttering, but before when doing the same operation it was completely un-listenable and unresponsive. I'm even tarring the Firefox source back up with bzip2 now to try. It's going quite slowly, but that's probably due to low RAM, as well as an older, slower, UDMA66 hard drive. 608K of real mem free and using up 50MB of swap, it's still sounding pretty good with minimal skips. I'm listening to a stream from my Athlon XP 2000+ in my left ear (via a headphone) and the same stream on the speakers here from my amd64. I hear occasional skips in the audio from the amd64 5.4-RELEASE box as I'm just typing this email, but while the other -STABLE box is semi-idle (X, Xfce, Firefox with 40 tabs open) I don't hear many skips at all. It's not perfect, but a huge improvement. I'm wondering what changed in 5-STABLE to make this so much better. I thought the fix was in 6 (Unless it was MFC)? This much improvement almost makes me want to just upgrade this amd64 box to -STABLE and start using it now. I just want to be sure it's stable enough for my use. Thanks again for all the input :). -Mark