From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Feb 11 12:54:24 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9EB8937B401 for ; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 12:54:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp10.wxs.nl (smtp10.wxs.nl [195.121.6.35]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EDCC843FAF for ; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 12:54:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from marco@beishuizen.info) Received: from tsunami.bsd (ipd50a233c.speed.planet.nl [213.10.35.60]) by smtp10.wxs.nl (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 Patch 1 (built Aug 19 2002)) with ESMTP id <0HA500KSDWQ20L@smtp10.wxs.nl> for alpha@FreeBSD.ORG; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 21:54:03 +0100 (MET) Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 21:54:15 +0100 (CET) From: Marco Beishuizen Subject: Re: Why is XFree86 on FreeBSD/Alpha much slower? In-reply-to: <15945.24538.794799.926276@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> To: Andrew Gallatin Cc: FreeBSD alpha mailing list Reply-To: Marco Beishuizen Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT FreeBSD: Homepage: References: <15945.23721.759825.313603@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> <15945.24538.794799.926276@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, the wise Andrew Gallatin spoke, and said: > > Marco Beishuizen writes: > > On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, the wise Andrew Gallatin spoke, and said: > > > > > > > > Marco Beishuizen writes: > > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > I have two machines, one Intel (450mhz) and one Alpha (600mhz). Both are > > > > running FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE and WindowMaker as windowmanager. The Intel > > > > has a Matrox G400max and the Alpha has a Matrox G450. > > > > > > What kind of alpha? What sort of slot is graphics board in on the > > > alpha? On the pc? > > > > > > Drew > > > > The alpha is a PWS600au, it has a 21164 cpu. The Matrox sits in one 32 > > bits PCI slot. The Intel is a PIII/450, and the G400 sits in the AGP slot. > > > > OK, so the AGP slot probably has at least 500MB/sec DMA. > > But: All 32-bit slots on your alpha sit behind a pci-pci bridge chip, > connecting to a main bus whose DMA characteristics are similar to: > > DMA rate for 8192 Byte pages (32bit / 33MHz bus) > Timing 32 pages. > bus_read (send) = 73 MBytes/s > bus_write (recv) = 129 MBytes/s > > > The PCI-PCI bridge slows this down even further. You might try > setting the magic SRM console variable to allow putting the card > into the 64-bit slot (see the alpha hardware notes that Wilo > maintains). But it will still suck moderatly. > > FWIW, the AGP Permedia board in my UP1000 doesn't suck. > > Drew I always thought that graphics performance was the strengh of the Alpha. But it seems to be the opposite. It's a lot slower than the Intel, but I don't think that it sucks so much that I should buy another graphics board. I guess I'll have to live with it. Marco -- "What are you doing?" "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short initiation period." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message