There seems to be a lot of interest in NT judging by the amount of messages.
Since you decided not to make a NT only version,  I am wondering if you
could make
the rendering engine multi-threaded which would not cause any problems in
Win95/98 but would run almost twice as fast on a 2 CPU NT platform.  Is the
programming difficult to do?  I don't know how many of the POVRay fans own
that kind of machine.  It seems to be getting a lot cheaper these days.  I
have one
myself.


povray.org admin team wrote in message <3580426c.8338169@news.povray.org>...

>There's no real point in having a NT-only version - the Win32 version is
fully
>32-bit and there's little we could do (while keeping it single-processor)
to
>make it faster on NT.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 15 Jun 1998 20:46:06 -0400, "Stephan Vogt"
<sno### [at] mindspringcom> wrote:

>There seems to be a lot of interest in NT judging by the amount of messages.
>Since you decided not to make a NT only version,  I am wondering if you
>could make
>the rendering engine multi-threaded which would not cause any problems in
>Win95/98 but would run almost twice as fast on a 2 CPU NT platform.  Is the
>programming difficult to do?  I don't know how many of the POVRay fans own
>that kind of machine.  It seems to be getting a lot cheaper these days.  I
>have one
>myself.

I've looked at this, and sad to say, it would be a horrible job to get
it to run multithreaded, due to the proliferation of global variables
used in unsavory ways.  You're better off just running two copies of
POVRay and using a script or batch file of some kind to coordinate the
rendering.

Post a reply to this message

Michael Lundahl <d93### [at] efdlthse> wrote in article
<6lbgc7$9oh$1@oz.aussie.org>...
> In article <6l8g03$33j$1@oz.aussie.org>,
> 	"aardvarko" <aar### [at] geocitiescom> writes:
> >>>Also, the STOP's are a pain. Whenever an app crashes badly, NT
generates a
> >>>STOP; just what it sounds like, a STOP halts the operating system and
> >forces
> >>>you to restart.
> >
> >>Not the OS my friend, the _processor_ ;)
> >
> >If it halts the processor. then why does the option "Automatically
reboot"
> >in System Properties under "When a STOP message occurs" work?
> >
> >It must be... uh... the FLOPPY DRIVE that automatically reboots it!
Yeah! ;)
> 
> Ok, you got me wondering... but... ever heard of the BIOS? ;)
> 

	Bollocks! The BIOS has nothing to do with it, it's not the processor
stopping, processors don't just stop, it _is_ NT. NT isn't anywhere near as
stable as Microsoft would have you believe, in fact, if you've got dodgy
software, it'll crash far more often than '95.

-- 
Scott Hill
Sco### [at] DDLinkscouk
Software Engineer (and all round nice guy)

"The best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn't
exist..."
								- Verbal Kint.

"the Internet is here so we can waste time talking about nothing in 
 particular when we should be working" - Marcus Hill.

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On Thu, 04 Jun 1998 20:29:48 +1200, Ross Smith <r-s### [at] ihugconz>
wrote:

>
>So don't take those "blue screen of death" tales too seriously. Yeah, it
>happens, but an average of one system crash per year is good enough for
>me.

Situation:
	First manned mission to Mars;

	"Ah, Houston, we a have a BSOD"

Post a reply to this message

> I've been running NT (3.51 and 4.0) for about four years, on several
> different boxes, using it for intensive development work as well as many
> other applications (including POV-Ray) (not counting editors and web
> browsers, the program I run most often is probably EGCS). In all that
> time, I've had exactly three system crashes (and one of those was under
> an early beta of NT4, so I don't think it's fair to count it), plus two
> occasions when the OS was malfunctioning badly enough that I rebooted to
> fix it. My record for contnuous up time is about two months. (The usual
> reason for rebooting is badly written installers that insist on a
> restart.)
 
Two months of continuous uptime? Two months for NT is unusual from what
I have heard, though two months is still not very much. Is this on a
home system, or a business system? From what I have heard NT is neither
stable nor secure for most business and engineering uses - it's a big
headache for system administrators. It is no replacement for Unix, and
it is insanely expensive. For some interesting perspective on the NT vs.
Unix question see:

http://www.kirch.net/unix-nt.html
http://www.isdmag.com/Editorial/1998/CoverStory9807.html

jb

Post a reply to this message

Jon S. Berndt wrote:
> 
> > I've been running NT (3.51 and 4.0) for about four years, on several
> > different boxes, using it for intensive development work as well as many
> > other applications (including POV-Ray) (not counting editors and web
> > browsers, the program I run most often is probably EGCS). In all that
> > time, I've had exactly three system crashes (and one of those was under
> > an early beta of NT4, so I don't think it's fair to count it), plus two
> > occasions when the OS was malfunctioning badly enough that I rebooted to
> > fix it. My record for contnuous up time is about two months. (The usual
> > reason for rebooting is badly written installers that insist on a
> > restart.)
> 
> Two months of continuous uptime? Two months for NT is unusual from what
> I have heard, though two months is still not very much. Is this on a
> home system, or a business system?

Business (software development).

> From what I have heard

You keep using that phrase. Perhaps there would be less OS bigotry
around if people were a bit more skeptical about hearsay. I have several
years of software development on both Win32 *and* Linux (and OS/2 and a
little Irix) behind me (and, I hope, several more in front of me :-) ),
so I think I can claim to know what I'm talking about. The rumours of
NT's death (blue screen of) are greatly exaggerated.

> NT is neither
> stable nor secure for most business and engineering uses - it's a big
> headache for system administrators. It is no replacement for Unix, and
> it is insanely expensive. For some interesting perspective on the NT vs.
> Unix question see:
> 
> http://www.kirch.net/unix-nt.html
> http://www.isdmag.com/Editorial/1998/CoverStory9807.html

Not relevant, since they're talking about servers and I'm talking about
workstations. I'd be the first to recommend Linux over NT for a
*server*. But for my desktop box, the one I cut C++ on all the live long
day, no amount of money would persuade me to use Unix.

-- 
Ross Smith ..................................... Wellington, New Zealand
<mailto:r-s### [at] ihugconz> ........ <http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~r-smith/>
   "Remember when we told you there was no future? Well, this is it."
                                                         -- Blank Reg

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Ross Smith wrote:
> 
> You keep using that phrase. Perhaps there would be less OS bigotry
> around if people were a bit more skeptical about hearsay. I have several
> years of software development on both Win32 *and* Linux (and OS/2 and a
> little Irix) behind me (and, I hope, several more in front of me :-) ),
> so I think I can claim to know what I'm talking about. The rumours of
> NT's death (blue screen of) are greatly exaggerated.

Well, I knew the phrase "from what I've heard" would raise a red flag. I
used NT several years ago writing a C++ graphing class. I had more
problems with MFC than I did with NT, as I recall. Then, too, I was
using a workstation, not a server. However, the "from what I've heard"
referred to "reliable hearsay" (I can hear the groans now). I've talked
to three system administrators specifically about NT in the past two
months and they were not too hard on NT, but when compared to Unix, NT
lost out all around.
 
I _do_ use Windows 95 at home and at work as well as several flavors of
Unix. I develop in C++ at home under Win95 and Windows 95 is quite
forgiving. I also really enjoy programming under Windows. And the big
complaint I have about programming under Unix is the lack of a really
good IDE. But when I program under Windows I can't help shake the
feeling that Windows is a big fat kludge. What is it that they say ...
"Windows is a 32-bit GUI built on a 16-bit OS for an 8-bit processor for
a 4-bit something-or-other by a two-bit company". When I compare it to
the GUI running on the Mac or even the Amiga I see a Windows as a
bloated, inefficient GUI. Granted, it has a lot of capabilities that the
former two do not have...

jb

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Lance Birch wrote:

> Hi, I was wondering whether anyone here uses NT 4.0...  I've just bought 3D
> Studio MAX and I was wondering whether there is a huge speed and reliability
> increase.  I've heard that it is better than Windows 95 but that it's about
> the same as Windows 98 (except 98 doesn't have Multi-Processor threading).
> Does anyone here know about NT and 98?  This may not be the best place to
> ask but I couldn't really find anywhere else.  Thanks.
>
> --
> Lance Birch
> Remove the smiley to e-mail.
> http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/parallax/359/

 Maybe a slightly more terse explanation will help:
I run NT 4.0 on a 233 MHz Pentium II box, and have run 95 on the same machine
(no Windows 98 in my immediate future). I have tinkered with 3D Studio on both,
and find NT to be a little faster, though not worth the expense of shelling out
the $$$ for it unless you're dedicated to 3D! The crashproofness just doesn't do
it for me with NT. The operating system itself is more robust than 95, but
program crashes aren't reduced.
Go with a fast processor and stick with 95, or throw out some money for NT and
try installing a few boards in it; Fun fun fun!

Andy

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Michael Lundahl wrote:
> 
> In article <6l8g03$33j$1@oz.aussie.org>,
>         "aardvarko" <aar### [at] geocitiescom> writes:
> >>>Also, the STOP's are a pain. Whenever an app crashes badly, NT generates a
> >>>STOP; just what it sounds like, a STOP halts the operating system and
> >forces
> >>>you to restart.
> >
> >>Not the OS my friend, the _processor_ ;)
> >
> >If it halts the processor. then why does the option "Automatically reboot"
> >in System Properties under "When a STOP message occurs" work?
> >
> >It must be... uh... the FLOPPY DRIVE that automatically reboots it! Yeah! ;)
> 
> Ok, you got me wondering... but... ever heard of the BIOS? ;)
> 
> /Michael

Ancient post, but, as I recall the stop instruction stops the machine
until an EXTERNAL interrupt occurs. Hitting the power or reset button
for one thing. Other hardware events can also unstop the processor.
--min

-- 
Lewis A. Sellers: writer and contract Multimedia Website Developer
mailto:lse### [at] usitnet (The Fourth Millennium Foundation)
http://www.public.usit.net/lsellers/ & http://www.intrafoundation.com
http://brain-of-pooh.tech-soft.com/users/critters/bios/sellers_lewis.html

You can bug the living bejesus out of me live on ICQ @ 491461
(If I don't get back to you within a month, I'm out of prozac in some
dark corner somewhere screaming things quite unintelligable but -- most
curiously -- thick with a sumerian accent.)

"The comedy is over" -i pagliacci

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On Wed, 18 Nov 1998 15:20:23 -0500, Lewis Sellers <lse### [at] usitnet> wrote:

>Ancient post, but, as I recall the stop instruction stops the machine
>until an EXTERNAL interrupt occurs. Hitting the power or reset button
>for one thing. Other hardware events can also unstop the processor.

You're thinking of the HLT instruction, which is an Intel thing.  At 
least the first person in the exchange you quoted was thinking of a 
system stop, also known in some circles as a Bugcheck or a Blue 
Screen of Death, which is an NT thing.  Most BSODs are the result of 
a protection fault at the kernel level.  The only thing you can do 
when you get a BSOD is restart the machine (unless you're running a 
kernel debugger)  Unixes get these too - they call it a Kernel Panic.

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