From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Feb 11 12:41: 8 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 85ABD37B401 for ; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 12:41:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7664943FBF for ; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 12:41:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gallatin@cs.duke.edu) Received: from grasshopper.cs.duke.edu (grasshopper.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.30]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id h1BKf38I001547 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:41:04 -0500 (EST) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by grasshopper.cs.duke.edu (8.11.6/8.9.1) id h1BKew030631; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:40:58 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from gallatin@cs.duke.edu) From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15945.24538.794799.926276@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:40:58 -0500 (EST) To: Marco Beishuizen Cc: FreeBSD alpha mailing list Subject: Re: Why is XFree86 on FreeBSD/Alpha much slower? In-Reply-To: References: <15945.23721.759825.313603@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under 21.1 (patch 12) "Channel Islands" XEmacs Lucid 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 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message