[rescue] Solaris 10 graphics card swap

[Joshua Boyd]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 02:06:58PM -0600, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> >From: Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net>
> >Date: 2008/01/15 Tue PM 10:59:39 CST
> >To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> >Subject: Re: [rescue] Solaris 10 graphics card swap
> 
> <snip>
> 
> >I may need to do a reinstall anyway.  As currently configured, this U80
> >(4x450, 4gigs, dual 9 gig, raptor64 gfx) is getting trounced by the U5
> >next to it (333, 512).
> >
> >I suspect that the Raptor64 may be way too slow.
> >
> >And I also suspect that the disk is way too slow as well (IBM DGHS09Y).
> 
> Given my definition of "trounced" your statement makes no sense to me
> - please explain? What is the workload that is optomized for a
> single-thread at 2/3rds the CPU clock spees, 1/2 the CPU cache, and
> 1/8th the RAM? I can't think of a workload that would excel in such an
> environment over the richer U80 environment... 

I think the workload is graphics and disk heavy.

For instance screen redraws are slower and firefox is less responsive
(probably because of the slow redraws).

Also, emacs seems to launch more slowly, something I will have to try to
actually time.

I believe the install went more slowely, but I didn't record the install
time either time.

So far I'm only trying to use the U80 as a terminal, I'm not trying to
compile software or run CPU intensive jobs.  All it needs to do is load
programs quickly from disk and redraw the screen adequately quickly.  In
2D.

The U5 has a U160 Compaq badged Fujitsu 10,000RPM 36g disk that is 5 years
old.  The U80 has a 9 gig IBM disk, that I don't know the age of.  I
have another similar Compaq disk, but it is a 68pin disk, not a SCA
disk.  I don't seem to own anymore nice SCA disks to put in the U80.

The U5 is running in 8 bit mode, while the U80 is in 24bit mode.  Still,
I would have thought that a Raptor 64 (which I believe is basically the
same as PGX64) would have been adequate.  

However, I also have an Expert3D, thus asking about what to expect while
swapping cards, in hopes that the Expert3D at least fixes the slow
graphics problem.  That is still a PCI card though, so I wonder if I
should instead be hunting down a Creator card of some sort.