Lets talk performance

[KronoLeginaire]

Generaly when I see a program taking long to load the main thing noticed by the user is allot of Hard-Drive activity, so assuming the HD is the source oft he problem wouldn't a faster hard-drive make for faster loading of program, file search, copy & paste, defrag, ect. ? Because most people have an adiquate amount of ram and ram it just a holding tank for live data, but if your hard-drive is faster the page file can be used more effeciently. See? Its all comming together now, around the speed of the HD - What do you guys think?

[LawyerRon]

You're right. A computer will only run as fast as its slowest component. On most newer systems, it's the hard drive. The cpu can process the data much faster than the hard drive can access it.

[Toaster]

Howdy,
System "Balance" is the key. No matter how good the components, any weak link will exploit the performance hit.
System balance is when all of the components are working "together" to achieve the same goal. That is "ALL" components.
Even a "cheepo" HDD cable can work correctly but not optimumly.
Often, overclockers push to the fine hairy edge only to find the system doesn't behave quite like it should. That fine hairy edge means thats as fast as the system will go but not without "hidden" errors or retrys.
I have seen systems overclocked that performed so badly that the user was simply stymied when I clocked it down about 3% and the system ran GREAT.
So...push to the "stable" limit and then give about 3% for "sheets 'n giggles".
Low end IDE cables are a big offender. Data errors exist but Win9x/ME/XP do whats called "three tries and your out" method. If the error only happens twice, the error goes unreported. The third time (in succesion) is what gives you the BSOD.

[phatboi]

ok, i understand that a faster hard drive is better. i've heard that if you have 2 hard drives, you can get the platters on each hard drive to do something simultaneously. like run an application and access files at the same time. here's my situation. i wanted to increase the performance of my computer. my hard drive is 60GB but it's only 5400rpm (it's up for sale btw), so i bought 2 7200 rpm hard drives. a 30GB and a 80GB. of course my motherboard comes with a Promise Raid controller. so how would i use this to my advantage. would i put the OS on on hard drive and the applications on the other. and keep my documents on a separate hard drive and partition as well. should i stripe the hard drives and make it one big hard drive. or should i partition it? i can ghost my hard drive so if i loose data i can recover. i'll ghost my drives every so often. so what would you suggest i do with my new faster hard drives? thank you.

[KronoLeginaire]

I read what you said toaster but I don't get what your point is?

[LawyerRon]

His point was in his opening sentence: "System "Balance" is the key."

[PMich]

phatboi,
I am not 100% positive but I always thought that HDDs had to be identical to be set up in RAID. Someone else shouldn't be able to confirm or deny this.

PMich

[Toaster]

Howdy,
When using IDE RAID, identical drives is almost a must or data corruption is likely. This applies to SCSI RAID as well but is more tolerant.
System performance is not soley based on the fastest components but rather "matching" the performance of components so that all work together at their fastest and most reliable capabilities.
The simple SCSI/IDE cable can be the most degrading component.
The cables often sent with system boards are OK for "typical" systems but not for the performance orientated. There are other methods such as cable routing, efficiency of the power supply to provide "clean" power, memory utilization tricks, memory installation methods (multi bank and the like), HDD mounting (this can make a REAL big difference!), and many other "little known tweaks".
So....the "key" is system balance and fine tuning to take advantage of ALL the components. When done properly, performance is peak without reduction in reliability. That is, you can have 100% stability (so long as the original config is 100%) and a hefty performance boost at the same time.
Most system board makers and other components "assume" a safe setting as opposed to optimum settings. These are NOT always in BIOS and are many times a "mechanical" change.
Example, many hard disk makers disable write caching and set read caching to simple buffering. Some are capable of "splitting" the cache so BOTH can be used.

Another example of "balance" is system component selection.
These include, modems, sound cards, net cards and other add-on periphs.
Each device in your system uses CPU time. This time is taken away from your applications to "simply manage the hardware".
So...selection of hardware that uses less CPU time results in a faster system.
The most common offender is the modem and the next is the sound card.
Each of these 2 items, in a typical set-up, can use 30%+ CPU time.
That is, a 1ghz system will perform like a 700mhz system when these devices are simply installed and worse when "used".
Typical PCI cheapie modems are by far the worst offender. These devices use CPU time by simply existing in your system with their needed support software.
Enable (use) the device and CPU time needed skyrockets.
Sound cards (even onboard) are the next big offender.
The worst is the AC'97 sound often found as a built-in on system boards.
Playing an MP3 with typical settings results in the CPU utilization of well over 40%. That is, that cheezy sound card/chip and its software drivers is EATING 40% of your CPU time leaving 60% for your apps.
If you throw a 3D game into the mix, connect via a cheapie modem for inyernet play with sound from a low end sound card, your system is performing well over 50% slower then it "can".
The whole world decided that ISA peripherals are "slow" but an ISA harware modem is used (or an external on a serial port), CPU utilization drops markedly.
An example of a sound card:
I use an AWE64-G card on ISA (I have the ISA so its great for my uses) and CPU time stays about 13% during a 3D game. No modem but rather DSL via my net card and router. The net card uses =very little CPU time so the modem is moot.
So...its NOT just the fastest hardware you can buy but rather making the best use of CPU time. Theres a bit more to this and the numbers have been averaged to some degree.


A close friend has a system he was pretty happy with. This was a modest PIII-1.33ghz system that he built with an ASUS system board, 384MB of RAM, onboard sound, cheezy PCI modem and a GeForce256.
The performance was acceptable but could be improved.
As a test, we installed an external modem, replaced the sound card with a Creative PCI 512 and the performance boost was quite noticable. It even added 20FPS in his gaming. To bet this boost otherwise, a video card upgrade would have been the best shot for the buck. That would have set him back 250.00 for a usable upgrade but was done for 110.00 and still used the same vid card.
What happened was simple, we allowed the CPU to run the app rather then the hardware.

[KronoLeginaire]

Well I don't know about you but my CPU usualy goes all the way up to almost 40% when starting Red Faction,and the only time it dose 100% is when I'm forcing windows to kill a program. Even when playing an MP3, its only at 0-2%. I dunno about all that 40% you're talking about.

[padawan]

I think the key word in his post was "cheezy sound card". My Game Theater XP uses about 1% or less to play MP3's. Even my cheap Fortissmo II runs around 1-2% max running MP3's...

[glc]

Long live ISA - the only way you will get my ISA USR Sportster and my AWE64G away from me is pry them out of my cold dead fingers..........

[Toaster]

Howdy,
I couldn't agree more GLC!
There are certain things that have made me rethink about system board upgrades....NO ISA slots!
You can't beat an AWE64-G for compatability and low CPU utilization.
Allot of folks ASSUME if its on PCI its faster.....boy have they allot to learn!

[Hpro]

GLC and Toaster - you got my vote on that one.. it is as you typed Toaster - it's faster than pci..as it doens't use up system resources has it's own CPU not some crappy written code.. has it's own ram - not taking up system ram you could use otherwise .. need more.???

[padawan]

But, there are a lot of reasons to get a new sound card. Like the death of ISA slots. 3D Positional Audio, 4.1 and 5.1 speaker systems, EAX, A3D 2.0, hardware MP3 decoding, digital-out, optical output, dolby digital decoders...the list goes on and on. While the ISA may have been good in it's day, there are equally good or even better PCI cards out there. For the sake of the newbies, let's not give the impression that PCI = Crappy Sound Card. You get what you pay for. How many of you own Game Theater XP's? Best sound card I have ever owned. Fast, no compatibility issues, and it has just about every option available.

Then again, if you are not a gamer, or don't listen to a lot of music on your PC, your choice in sound card doesn't really matter.

[Hpro]

Then again, if you are not a gamer, or don't listen to a lot of music on your PC, your choice in sound card doesn't really matter.

I would like to have you hear what comes out of that AWE64 GOld over the Line output - connected to a Class A Tube Amplifier - and then take the 5.1 and hook it up - BTW I got a 5.1 also - it's NO MATCH>!!!

There has been a member of pcmech here who had to chance to listen to it.. if he reads this may he posts his thought about the feeling of super pure sound..Linear Sound not some faked 3D sound -

sorry to have to disagree - BTW I'm a music lover and if it doesn't sound good then I don't listen to it -
Regards..
Hpro

Edit now I will get in trouble here !!

OK I make this as short as possible - the originnal sound source of every sound - is it from nature, humans or animals, planes, cars, forks, knifes, gunshots or whatever, and which is not proscessed by a synthesizer - is ANALOG and NOT DIGITAL.!!!!

The human ear can not hear - digital sound as long it isn't converted to ANALOG sound - and there is where all the things are ..

Philips invented the CD-player and also DAT = Digital Audio Tape - the reason is as easy as , just because of tapes or original Vinyl records would wear down too fast.. and more when getting dusty then it would make unwanted noises.. but the sound quality of a DAT or CD will never ever match a Vinyl record nor a REAL TO REAL HIGH SPEED TAPE ..

The reason why?
The human ear can as stated above receive and " translate" analog sound very easy - and the human ear is made for it in a logarithm line - basses will need more strength to be heard than high pitched sounds.. which will bring us to the next step which is the questions -
"What's Analog??
Analog is a soundwave which for instance could create a circle - having all the frequencies within this cirqle - and only the time or HERTZ would change the pitch of the sound - called a SINE WAVE>>!

A sine Wave is a wave where the signal line starts at 0 then goes in a halfcircle to the top and back to 0 and in the second halfcircle it undergoes 0 into the negative range of the wave - if this occurs 1 time within 1 second then this is called 1 hertz./

A new born can hear from about 16 hertz to 19000 hertz or 19khz this number will decrease when age advances and ears getting worn down - a 40 year old human can hear mostly not above 16 k anymore and over 60 it will be down to about 13Khz this again depends on the use of this individuals life of his or her ears... dogs can easy hear above 20 khz same as cats..

Now to get the best sound of each wave the more smooth the this line is ( Sine WAVE )the better and clean is the sound.. any straight line in there is called distortion and changes in thickness (if the wave is looked at a oscisloscope) is a sign of unlienarity givin a bad sound image..

While digital sound is someting completely differend - there is a max and a min voltage - call it either l= for low and h = for high or 0 for low and 1 for high it's still a voltage which can only change in in the amount from 0 - say 5 volts and back - there it can take only the upper 1 volt to use and the lower one volt so that from say 1.2 volts to 3.8 volts - is nomansland.. it's just there for separating the high or low so that the decoder know what infact the signal is..and then there of course is the lengt of the signal which will be cut into bits and pieces..

Now when recording sound which is original sound as you find it as I stated above then this sound will be converted into voltages and this will then make a SQUARE WAVE and a SQUARE WAVE which goes from 0 - 1 and back that's all there are only two instances..

This ain't no sound the sound of this will then be made in the length - write time -of this wave and then it has to be converted back to ANALOG to be outputted to speakers as of speaker coils do not respond to DIGITAL signals - a speaker coil forced to receive a digital signal will burn out - as it can't handle direct current which is the source of DIGITAL SIGNAL - audio sound needs alternating current - otherwise there is no way to get a sound ..but a lot of smoke..I;m talking about amplified sound here not origianl sound..

More digital signals will have to be sampled and hold and converted ..
Now if the Digital signal is curved like a analog signal then you will see that the line will be like a stairstep and each of those steps there is something missing of the sound - and this something which is missing then has to be sampled back into that space to make a clean line - but as the origianl sound is missing so the decoder will togehter with the digial sound processor (DSP) process a "note"wich fits the space which is missing - BUT THIS ISN'T THE ORIGINAL - this is a FAKE - and this note isn't the note which you got from that VINYL RECORD but it something which has been processed by a DSP and so for if you listen very good to digital sound it's a hard metallic sound - no life no sweetness ..

To make a easy test take a record with a piece of music and then just play it on a good turn table over a good amplifier and a pair of speakers and then get a CD with the same piece of music and you will know what all of this piece of music has been gone..and is missing ... ONLY DEAF people will not hear a difference..

The only good feature on CD or digital sound is that is more or less dust proofed but when it comes to purified musical sound then it's away ages from the real thing...
Sorry to make it that long.. and that's why a PCI which is only digital CODE translated (talking about all the cheap ones here ) and 3D sounds and 5.1's and all what comes with it are without it's own onboard CPU will never be able to reproduce the cleaness of a old ISA card..
Thanks for reading..
Hpro

[padawan]

Ok, now this is moving into another realm. Ok, how about I connect my GTXP to my home theater system with the optical-out connector, which has to better than a line-out? I can also drop a Ferrari V-12 into a Ford Escort, but it is it worth it? The average PC guy does not have his sound card hooked up to his home theater system, hence the massive explosion of "high-end" PC speakers onto the market.

My point was, let's not give the false impression that ISA cards are so much better than PCI cards. If they were, the industry would not be moving away from ISA. My point was, newbies read these posts and get the impression that ISA is the way to go. Quick, show of hands, who here would give up their PCI sound card for an ISA card? Here are the specs for the AWE64:
http://www.soundblaster.com/products...alue/specs.asp
No 4 speaker support, no Dolby Digital decoding, no EAX, No Direct Sound...
Now, let's look at an inexpensive PCI card, the Hercules Fortissimo II. I have this card, so I can attest to it not using "40% of my CPU cycles" during MP3 playback.
http://us.hercules.com/products/techspec.php3?id=9
EAX? Yep. 4.1? Yep. DirectSound? Of course. Explain to me why I would want to keep an ancient ISA card when better PCI cards are around? I guess I should break out my old ISA video, too.

I would pit my GTXP and PC speakers against your ISA card and PC SPEAKERS anyday. CPU utilization? 0-1%. Does your ISA card do 5.1? How about 6.1? It's 2002 guys, let the ISA slot go, please

If you are a newbie, DO NOT buy an ISA sound card. There are plenty of good PCI cards on the market, and they are not expensive.

[Hpro]

The average PC guy does not have his sound card hooked up to his home theater system, hence the massive explosion of "high-end" PC speakers onto the market.

BTW this isn't my home stereo system -- it's used to get a somewhat decent sound out of a digital computer envirorment..

have a better system in my sound proofed room...

But - I agree with you on the point that time goes on and that new things will come up - but this still doen't make it better or worse it's individual - and I do not use PC SPEAKERS - the speakers hooked up to that amp are in the price range of 1500 Usd ... From germany -- just btw Isophon if you have heard of themm..

You see I'm happy that you like what you have and I'm also happy with what I have - sound is like ladies - it would be very sad if every man would like the same kind of girls.. and the most important thing is different ears - so as someone can hear it sound the way he likes it - so everything is OK,
NO offense meant here - it's all technical and almost 4 am - so forgive me my bad spelling..
Hpro

[Toaster]

Hello folks,
First off, I wasn't suggesting that folks "only" buy an ISA sound card. I simply stated that "in my case", the AWE64-G exceeds my needs and has very good (acurate) sound quality. Sure the ISA slot is dead, I think its unfortuanate, but still true.
Folks have gotten into this "plug and pray" thing and the wrong thinking that PCI is faster under any condition, this is quite false.
Like Hpro, I take music quite seriously. It has to be accurate or I'll find another way. In my case, I am considering an upgrade but unfortuately, the AC'97 sound "chip" resides on many system boards. This AC'97 sound chip is horrendous to say the least and a CPU time eater deluxe.
Also, I'm not saying all PCI sound cards and modems eat unusually at the CPU time but the low end stuff DOES (eg:AC'97).
My AWE64-G works with any application...period. If I want to run an old DOS game...it does without driver support because it emulates the SB16/32/pro.
So...in my case, all I need is the AWE64 and I have been hard pressed finding a PCI equivilant.

CPU time:
When checking CPU time used by peripherals, the simple "monitor" that ships with Win9x is worthless.
A sound card very often uses at least one IRQ and sometimes 2 and 2 DMA channels.
The driver set for the AWE64 card is a paltry 650KB if not less.
I've seen 4MB driver sets for many sound cards that do all the sound card "emulation" work.
What is so so wrong with add on periphs with thier own intelligence?
I bought a faster system to ....well...go faster...not run peripherals!

[KronoLeginaire]

How can you determin the accuratecy of a sound card anyway?

[glc]

No direct sound? I beg to differ sir - my AWE64G supports direct sound quite nicely. You are quoting the specs of the Value version - mine is the Gold - a WORLD of difference! The Gold is an audiophile sound card, and I will propose that it's the most accurate sound card that Creative has ever manufactured.

[padawan]

Hey Toaster...
Looking to upgrade? Go Abit. They rarely put that integrated crap on their boards. You could disable the AC97, too. I did that on my AK77 Plus, and it works like a champ.

[Xayd]

I'm an Abit die hard, no matter what anyone says about their own Abit boards or how much they cost.

I can remember Abit producing ONE dud mobo in the past 2 or 3 years, period. I don't even count it, since it was a first generation slot Athlon board and those were all riddled with chipset issues anyways.

Abit doesn't make alot of mobos. Abit doesn't make a board with every new chipset that comes along. When the chipset is worth making, though, Abit does produce one single very good mobo every 6 months or so, IMHO. And to their credit they've also produced several 'top of the line' mobos that were the best of their chipset/class for quite awhile.

BP6 (first dually celeron mobo)
BE6-II
KT7A

etc.

[Toaster]

Hello folks,
While Abit, Asus and a few others make fine boards, I still have a problem with the AC'97 simply existing.
Hal is using an SIS based P4 (SIS645) that has been showing great promise and good benchmarking. SIS is now building the DX variant which looks even better. I however have had BIG issues with SIS but this chipset is licensed via Intel.


Padawan:
The AWE64-G and the AWE64 "value" are two differebt animals altogether.
The AWE64-G is EXTREMELY accurate, very very clean, very low CPU utilization.
Not having an onboard power amp helps to give this card qualities (and other goodies) thats hard to match.

[KronoLeginaire]

Well, I belive that my ECS card is the best. Its got all the ports you need and is 5.1 w/ Dolby Digital. THis is much better than any ISA, dos-times, old 9-bit stuff that sells at the flea market for 35 Cents anyday

My card is an ECS Thundering Digital 5.1 DVD card w/ Dolby Digital Decoding onboard. IT supports digital out and sufwolfer options, and like many I have not had any problems with sound from any game what so ever. I also have onboard Via sound which I never use but might if this card ever fails. THey said that my ECS card is just like the Sound Blaster live, it sounds good to me anyway, but still, I am not watching movies and my games sound just fine and who is to say what a game is to sound like any way? The developers maybe but I doubt anyone here has gone to the developer's studio to listen to the game's sound track or anything like that, while I am still a bit confused as to how you guys canjudge the accuratcy of a sound card without any knowdlege of what the inital sound sounded like, and then there are your speakers, and even the wire which the sound travels through. There is allot to consider when saying that its the sound card that is bad or good, when there is much more involved here.

BTW, about CPU utilization. This factor really dose NOT matter, because your computer should never use 100% processor power, if it dose this regurarly then its way out of shape, and the intention of this post was to bring awareness and possible solutions to the slowness of the common 7200RPM Hard Drives which are put into systems today as if there are top-of the line equipment finely tuned for usage. What I belive is that the HD is the slowest thing in the modern computer because it is limited by its own RPM, then we have other technologies such as RAID and SCSI which have no real differnce. I want to see loading times decrease by 100%, I'm talking all digital optical transfer. Internal transfer speeds would vanish, instead data would move in a continous stream. IF you actually thing about it the CPU is the most overrated part in the computer. Now when you put thought into it a 1.2GHz system is way better than any 2+ GHz Intel can spit out just to stay ahead. We can worrie about the CPU later, its too easy to make fast CPUs, besides when the computer is working correctly w/ the correctly selected parts the CPU is never used at full 100% anyway. Now, lets get to some real business, Now, I know they are working on making pc-133 based solid state drives but how about Rambus? WHat is actually involved in holding the data? Is it just setting up a special board to mask the memory off as a standard HD and provding continous power to enable the perm. storage of the data? Le tme know, in the meanwhile I'll be researching this.

[KronoLeginaire]

And BTW, one thing I know is even if the computer is not broken-in yet you should still notice some increase in speed, but what I'm looking for is someting dramatic, not just numbers on the box.

"We got a nice 45,000RPM drive for only $127" is not going to win me over.

[HAL9000]

Originally posted by KronoLeginaire BTW, about CPU utilization. This factor really dose NOT matter, because your computer should never use 100% processor power, if it dose this regurarly then its way out of shape........

Well, that depends, I run the distributed.net client and that will keep you at 100% utilization at all times as it uses any and all free CPU cycles.

[KronoLeginaire]

yea, I really did mean to exclude those type of programs but I didn't know what they were called at the moment. Sorry.

[Hpro]

hey Krono -
You see there is a lot more - and it's called balance of the system as Toaster likes to put it.. so I give you a oppertunity to take your System to the EDGE - if it still runs after 6 hours then OK if not then you got to change your SIG,!!!

dowload this file and run it - the software is freeware - so no copyright there.

BTW all of my computers went on for 24 hours + without even to chocke on it..
Test your Box

[KronoLeginaire]

Ok, I'll try that program but whats this changing my sig stuff?

[Hpro]

I WOULD put my computer list here but some people only have cheap refurbished Compaqs and don't want to see my monster grace the forum!!!!!!!

if your MONSTER doesn't make it over 6 hours - then it isn't a monster at all ..
this what I meant -- the software is stressing the CPU as you never would expect it..
and BTW I have my own way of Jocking...