Was it running any applications ?

-- 
Ken Tyler

tyl### [at] pacbellnet

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On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 20:23:05 +1000, Lance Birch 
	<zon### [at] satcomnetau> wrote:
>I think that you are the one speaking rediculously...
>
>An obscene amount of memory?  You've got to be joking?  Besides, NT is for
>those that need and use large amounts of memory.  It's also far more stable
>with large amounts of memory.

I agree.  NT is for those who need and use large amounts of memory.  But 
how many desktop users with 32M of RAM are going to "upgrade" to win2k
because they think it's the next logical step?  Do you think MS is going 
to tell them that's a bad idea?

>As do I.  I'd much prefer NT over 98.  You say NT takes longer to boot?  The
>only response I've got for that is to ask you a question...  Would you
>rather boot once a day and have it take a little longer than have to reboot
>10 times a day?  In my personal experiance, the former is better.  I'm sick
>to death of getting illegal operations!!!

If I only had to boot once a day, that'd be nice.  Since I'm doing real work,
however, developing device drivers and applications, I have to boot NT far
more often.  Real operating systems don't require you to reboot to change 
your IP address, or to install or remove a video driver, or to change the 
size of your swap file.

>Hmm, that's interesting.  From my benchmarks, NT renders 5 times faster than
>98 in 3D Studio MAX R2.5.  Now if that isn't a substantial increase I don't
>know what is.  Obviously POV-Ray is an exception to this as it wasn't
>specifically built for NT.

Obviously raytracing is a completely different task than 3DSMAX and has
different priorities.  I thought we covered this.

>For the first:  Why not?  The rendering station at my school seems to cope
>well with it.  It is also only a P233 with 64Mb of RAM.  

Then it's four times the machine most consumers currently running 98 have.
The average machine in the field is probably no better than a P166, and
I'm guessing most users have 32M or less RAM.

>It runs a
>Perception DSP drive and a video output subsystem.  I've NEVER had a crash
>or the slightest problem.  A DSP drive won't even run under 98 or 95 because
>of it's useless subsystem, even if the processor is much more powerful and
>you have more RAM.

Then that is an application for which NT is suited.  But it's hardly an
average desktop machine.

>And for the second statement:  What else are you planning on using?  Some
>out-of-date operating system that is totally incompatible with all major
>network standards... 

There is only one major network standard, and there's only one OS
that was designed from the ground up to support it.  The standard is
TCP/IP and the OS is Unix.

>I don't think so.  At work we run NT perfectly well.
>It acts as a server for a network and also as an internet pipeline and proxy
>server.  It has never crashed in the time I've been there and I don't
>believe it ever will.  It usually has to cope with being online for several
>days, even weeks at a time without restarting.  

Most Unix servers stay online for months or years without restarting.  Before
MS came along, rebooting or even shutting down a machine was virtually unheard
of.

>If Windows 98/95 DID support multi-processors I'd suppose that they could be
>viable for rendering, however the lack of memory support and fixed system
>resource setting is a pain and causes high-end apps like 3D Studio MAX to
>crash frequently.  

Ah.  Perhaps you're thinking of that dialog box that popped up on our NT
server a week or two ago, telling us that our swap file was too small
and telling us it would be happy to resize it for us if we didn't mind
rebooting?  This is dynamic memory allocation?  I'm not saying Unix does
it any better, mind, but I think it at least allows you to add a swap 
partition if you have the extra space without having to reboot.

>One of the biggest problems of running MAX on 95/98 is
>fixed resources.  Not many people understand the way 95/98 handles system
>resources.  I have to make this clear, memory has nothing to do with
>resources in 95/98.  The resources are ultimately fixed.  NT doesn't have
>this problem, it has infinite resource allocation, something MAX needs to
>run correctly.  

Pardon me, did you miss the part where I said I write software for NT and
Windows 9x?  I know how resource allocation works, in excruciating detail.
Because of what I do, I have had to reverse-engineer the resource allocation
scheme by disassembling the kernel to find out things MS didn't want me to 
know (and they told me so, in person).  It is not infinite, and it is still 
shared between processes.  The result is the same: one resource-hogging app 
can kill every other app on the system, no matter what they tell you.  
Granted, the pool of available resources is a bit larger, but it is still a 
fixed-size pool.

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On 22 Jan 1999 06:08:51 -0500, Nieminen Mika <war### [at] cctutfi> wrote:
>  I have seen win95 working just fine in a 486 66MHz with 8M of RAM.

I've run it on that configuration.  I think your definition of "just fine"
must be a bit different from mine. :)  But at least it does install and
run.

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Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
: Was it running any applications ?

  Cakewalk, Vienna SF Studio, Goldwave, etc. (yes, he IS a musician).
  I was surprised too. It seems to work well.

-- 
main(i){char*_="BdsyFBThhHFBThhHFRz]NFTITQF|DJIFHQhhF";while(i=
*_++)for(;i>1;printf("%s",i-70?i&1?"[]":" ":(i=0,"\n")),i/=2);} /*- Warp. -*/

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In article <36A8529F.4AB9ABA4@void.nacstock.ac.uk> , Mike Varley
<mik### [at] voidnacstockacuk>  wrote:

>Can POV be recompiled in a dual processor environment to make better use
>of the hardware. Are there any compilations of this sort available?

No, not with a *lot* of work and massive changes to the code, also this depends on
the way you plan to use it. Running two POV-Rays at the same time, however, might do
the trick.


     Thorsten

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In article <36a8af8a.0@news.povray.org>, "Thorsten Froehlich"
<fro### [at] charliecnsiitedu> wrote:

>In article <36A8529F.4AB9ABA4@void.nacstock.ac.uk> , Mike Varley
><mik### [at] voidnacstockacuk>  wrote:
>
>>Can POV be recompiled in a dual processor environment to make better use
>>of the hardware. Are there any compilations of this sort available?
>
>No, not with a *lot* of work and massive changes to the code, also this
depends on
>the way you plan to use it. Running two POV-Rays at the same time,
however, might do
>the trick.

Is there any way to tell the operating system in a dual-processor
environment to use both processors in floating-point operations? Does
processor-switching occur fast enough for small operations like this to
speed up otherwise non-dual-supporting applications?

Jerry

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Jerry wrote:
> 
> In article <36a8af8a.0@news.povray.org>, "Thorsten Froehlich"
> <fro### [at] charliecnsiitedu> wrote:
> 
> >In article <36A8529F.4AB9ABA4@void.nacstock.ac.uk> , Mike Varley
> ><mik### [at] voidnacstockacuk>  wrote:
> >
> >>Can POV be recompiled in a dual processor environment to make better use
> >>of the hardware. Are there any compilations of this sort available?
> >
> >No, not with a *lot* of work and massive changes to the code, also this
> depends on
> >the way you plan to use it. Running two POV-Rays at the same time,
> however, might do
> >the trick.
> 
> Is there any way to tell the operating system in a dual-processor
> environment to use both processors in floating-point operations? Does
> processor-switching occur fast enough for small operations like this to
> speed up otherwise non-dual-supporting applications?
Not that I am aware... 

//Spider


> Jerry

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Alright, I just had to write back :)

> Do you think MS is going  to tell them that's a bad idea?

No, because they're a bunch of scumbags, we all know that :)  Actually,
better watch what I say here or the MSGang might come and attack me ;-)

> more often.  Real operating systems don't require you to reboot to change
> your IP address

I agree there, that's anoying.

> The standard is TCP/IP and the OS is Unix.

I've never used Unix (infortunately), but NT seemed to work well for me in
that respect, maybe in more complex situations it falls.

> Most Unix servers stay online for months or years without restarting

That's not exactly what I meant, I just meant it does pretty well,
considering we always shut it down every few weeks, just to give it a rest.
I'm sure it could go longer.  The only thing I'm worried about is that one
day when we turn it back on, the hard drive will seize up!!!  (I've heard a
few cases of it happening, I just hope it doens't happen to me!)

>Pardon me, did you miss the part where I said I write software for NT and

No, just explaining it to anyone else reading, I understand fully that you
know your way around NT!  I was suprised to hear that it still is fixed
though, looks like MS has been lying... again...

I suppose it all comes down to what you want to use it for.  Obviously for
high-end work it is great, I guess for low-end work it isn't worth it.


--
Lance.


---
For the latest 3D Studio MAX plug-ins, images and much more, go to:
The Zone - http://come.to/the.zone

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My brother has a 486 running 98 and it runs it fine.  It's actually sitting
next to me right now (well not sitting, but you know!).  It's pretty fast
really, more than I'd suspected running 98.  It even run Excel reasonably
fast, but I must say that the Developer Studio and VC++ don't run that
great.  It's been through many years of POV-Raying so I guess that's why
it's so fast in it's retirement :)  Unfortunately, it is going to be
obsolete in 5 days time when a new Dell laptop arrives *BIG GRIN*

--
Lance.


---
For the latest 3D Studio MAX plug-ins, images and much more, go to:
The Zone - http://come.to/the.zone

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Lance Birch wrote:
> 
> My brother has a 486 running 98 and it runs it fine.
> --
> Lance.
 
I was really questioning the ability of w-95 to run on 8 megs
of memory rather than it's ablilty to run on a 486. I guess
that is what swap files are for - OUCH !

-- 
Ken Tyler

tyl### [at] pacbellnet

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