#Time for another CPU?
11 messages in this thread
Kevin,
I am going to be buying another CPU. But what to choose?.. My concern is
that I have 600-1200 frame animations that are taking 12 to 24 hours. I
currently have a 486/33 36meg ram w/ Wietek always about 400meg free on my
1.6meg HD's. In December 1991 I was telling you that I may by an EISA
system in about June or July. You had mentioned that I should wait a little
longer before I buy EISA. Is it time yet? <g>. Any other cpu would be
helpful. I am looking at the GATEWAY 4DX2-66E EISA or 4DX2-66V VESA local
bus. I have heard that Acad12 for WIN does not support the ATI ULTRA that
ships with the GATEWAY. I would get a different card. Mostly I was
wondering if you had any comments in regards to the EISA vs. VESA local bus
issue.
Thanks,
Stephen
Stephen,
I'd pick the VESA local bus board (w/most slots ISA). I'm not gonna
stand by my decision, though <g>. Right now, I'd say it's more a matter of
preference. Hold off on the ATI card, but consider the Diamond Viper VLB. As
for the 486/33, are you paging at all, or are the times based on everything
being handled in sufficient RAM?
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Kevin,
So far it seems that all is well in 36meg of ram. My new system will start
out with at least 32meg. I notice that the ram is being used. After a long
rendering I will come back to 3ds keyframer and notice as much as 16meg of ram
is being used and 0 swap file. I am not sure this is accurate because maybe
while I am rendering there is a LARGE swap file being generated. And then
after I am done rendering the swap file gets cleaned up.. I'm not sure. I
notice that there is a lot of disk activity but I think that is because of
converting the *.tga files to a *.flc file. Any ideas? I could save about
500-1000 and put that money towards RAM, a Wietek, and MORE DISK. I am
"not" sure there is enough reading/writing to disk (even with a null
display) to warrant an EISA with a disk controller. Oddly enough, even
GATEWAY does not sell an EISA card with there EISA CPU. It only has an EISA
controller for the hard drive.
Stephen
Stephen,
Remember, you cannot (or should not) use a Weitek along with a 486/50DX,
486/50DX2 or 486/66DX2. in the first instance, no Weitek will run fast enough,
whereas in the final two the built-in Intel math coprocessor in the 486 cpu is
faster.
I think we may have gotten into this before, but if your end result is a .FLC
file, can you use a custom pallette? That way you avoid creation of all the
TGAs and save some disk access & certainly a great deal of temporary disk
space. Another idea is to use Stacker to increase the disk size available.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Kevin,
Have you used Diamond's local bus Viper? Do you know if it has any problems
with 3DS/AAPRO/ACAD or WIN 3.1? <g>
Also, have you heard of any good local bus Hard Drive controllers? Can
VL bus HD controllers work with SCSI drives?
Stephen
Stephen,
No Viper here. Ultrastor makes a fine VESA local-bus SCSI controller.
Many VL-bus motherboards include only an IDE H.D. + floppy controller.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Stephen,
The Diamond Viper VLB works great with 3DS and ACAD, it comes with TurboDLD
Deluxe, our top-level accelerator for Autocad. The board is pretty darn awesome
in 3DS doing camera moves and realtime wireframe previews in the keyframer.
I've never seen a board that runs as fast as the Viper.
-Chris
Panacea
If 3ds reports a 0 swap file, then you haven't been paging. On the other hand,
once the swap is greater than 0, Phar Lap continues to page until you exit and
restart 3ds.
– Jack
Jack,
It seems as though you must exit 3ds 2.1 to free up the ram that is being
used regardless of whether you have created a swap file or not. Acad 12
seems the same way. Occationally it seems necessary to exit just to free
the memory. It sure would be nice if there was a way to reclaim the memory
without exiting out of the program[s].
Stephen
Are you saying that 3ds uses up RAM that is then no long available to it? I
don't think that's the case, Stephen. Even with a swap buffer, the virtual
memory continues to be available while you're using the program; it's just much
slower than RAM. In any case, it's actually a limitation in Phar Lap, at
present.
– J
Stephen
PMJI- but if you ever decide on the Weitek or not, I have one setting around,
its for a 486/33mhz machine (4167). And as Martin said, it should only be used
with a 33mhz cpu. I contacted Weitek directly, before buying the chip, and
asked about using it with a 50mhz chip, they said they would not recommend it
for they have heard of the chips
"burning out" because of the higher speed of the cpu. The Weiteks are made for
the there respective speeds of cpu only. Weitek 25 for the 25mhz cpu, the
Weitek 33 for the 33mhz cpu, and no up or down grading.
Also Weitek said the 33mhz 4167 is the last of the co-processor chips
they will be making, no 50mhz or up.
Carl