second thoughts on buying a 3000UX

[David Kessner]

In article <19512 at cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup at cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) writes:
>	Also note that most all existing VGA-etc boards have a LOT of wait-
>states, so regardless of CPU/bus speed, you're card-limited.  The 3000 has
>pretty efficient access to chip memory (with the 32-bit bus).  It does
>need to sync to the slower bus, but I wouldn't be suprised if the bandwidth
>available to the CPU (MB/s, gfx-mem to gfx-mem) was considerably higher on
>the A3000 than on most or all VGA boards.  Plus you can run the blitter in
>parallel with the CPU - even if it's slower at some things, overall throughput
>is higher (and it is faster at non-nice conditions, I suspect).  Also you
>get the the rest of the display hardware (copper, etc), which makes virtual
>screens easy and very fast.
>-- 
>Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering.
>{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup at cbmvax.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  

I am using X11 and Motif on a 386/25 and an ATI VGA Wonder board (faster than
most).  Compred to the A3000UX, it is a DOG with Video-- although everything
else seemed faster (compiling, math, etc).  I am using X11r3, but many folks 
have told me that X11r4 is much faster.  

The other thing to consider is that the PC's display LOOKS BETTER.  
1024x768x256 is becomming normal for a Intel based UNIX box with VGA-- and it
is not interlaced!  Color even.  (we have yet to figure out who C= made a 
B&W Xwindows.  We think that EXTRA EFFORT was needed to make it B&W!) 

I also just read in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware that there is a new ATI VGA Wonder
board that is 3.5 times faster than mine.  Also 34010 boards are now down to
about $600, where fast SVGA boards are $300+.  (Can someone tell me how much
the U of L 34010 board is expected to be?)

But the bottom line is that a VGA based X11 is BARELY fast enough on my 386/25
(I have not tried it on a 486).  However, when running UNIX, display speed is
not everything since there are many other things that can be happening like
other users logged in via RS-232, CPU bound tasks (Ray tracing anyone?), 
News/UUCP feeds, and the list goes on...

					- David K
-- 
David Kessner - david at kessner.denver.co.us            | do {
1135 Fairfax, Denver CO  80220  (303) 377-1801 (p.m.) |    . . .
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