From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 12 16:54:19 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D2EC16A41B; Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:54:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kevin@your.org) Received: from tokyo01.jp.mail.your.org (tokyo01.jp.mail.your.org [204.9.54.5]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A45F13C465; Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:54:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kevin@your.org) Received: from mail.your.org (server3-a.your.org [64.202.112.67]) by tokyo01.jp.mail.your.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D27192AD55C9; Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:54:17 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [69.31.99.11] (pool011.dhcp.your.org [69.31.99.11]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.your.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29B5BA0A44E; Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:54:17 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <470F9BA9.5080606@FreeBSD.org> References: <20071012170341.72b8b888.vlady@gbservices.biz> <470F9175.3020002@FreeBSD.org> <20071012183534.bacd989b.vlady@gbservices.biz> <470F9BA9.5080606@FreeBSD.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <2C263E0F-1231-4F73-A820-1A3265B72078@your.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Kevin - Your.Org" Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:54:23 -0500 To: Stefan Esser X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.3) Cc: Vladimir Terziev , freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Kris Kennaway Subject: Re: Video memory as swap under FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:54:19 -0000 On Oct 12, 2007, at 11:07 AM, Stefan Esser wrote: > Vladimir Terziev schrieb: >> You're right, >> >> the swap, typically configured, is much more than the amount of >> the video memory, but in fact the swap is just a reserv, which >> ensures continuation of the normal operations on the machine, at >> times of peak loads. >> In our days the amount of RAM placed in the servers is so much, >> that the swap, in fact, is rarely used at all and a very small >> amount of it (several MB) is used. In that cases having a very >> fast swap space in the Video RAM, in addition to the disk swap, >> would be a good solution. > > If you have a video card with so much excess memory, that you can > use it > for swap, then I wonder whether the video card has not been much too > expensive ;-) > > How about spending $25 for another Gigabyte of RAM (real RAM, not > SWAP) > instead? > I'm not commenting on if this is a good idea or not either way, but at least one vendor of servers that we've been buying from is now including 128 or 256MB of video ram(not UMA, real video ram) embedded on the motherboard now. I thought it was odd too, until I asked our sales rep. The 8MB ATI chipset they used to use would have disqualified them from being "Vista Capable". So, whether we want it or not, we're getting at least 128MB of video memory on our servers now. I'd thought about trying to use it for something, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. :) -- Kevin