From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Feb 18 20:01:57 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id UAA25469 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 18 Feb 1996 20:01:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from fly.HiWAAY.net (root@fly.HiWAAY.net [204.214.4.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA25464 for ; Sun, 18 Feb 1996 20:01:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from max3-145.HiWAAY.net by fly.HiWAAY.net; (5.65v3.0/1.1.8.2/21Sep95-1003PM) id AA01351; Sun, 18 Feb 1996 22:01:39 -0600 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 22:01:46 -0600 To: questions@freefall.freebsd.org From: dkelly@hiwaay.net (David Kelly) Subject: Re: NexGen CPU? Cc: wangel@wgrobez1.remote.louisville.edu, dbaker@crash.ops.neosoft.com Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk Gary Roberts replied: >The NExtGEN cpu are junk. They are faster in some cases then the intel, >but they do not have an floating point chips or whatnot, you have to use >'emulators' that emulate floating point processes. FPU NexGens have been available for the past couple of months. Non-FPU NexGens perform sometimes a bit better, sometimes a bit worse, than comparable Pentium CPUs on non-FPU tasks. I don't have a NexGen with FPU so I don't know how well it works. FreeBSD 2.1R runs just fine on my NexGen PCI-90. The standard FreeBSD FPU emulator also works fine but it *is* slower than Christmas. Otherwise my NexGen is quite a screamer and has totally lived up to my expectations. The term "junk" used above is totally out of place. One rainy day I plan on testing the Pentium-specific optimizations in gcc and see if they help a NexGen. -- David Kelly N4HHE, n4hhe@amsat.org, dkelly@hiwaay.net ============================================================= To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. - Thomas Edison