Which HAL?? Uniprocessor or ACPI
JohnRR
I read some posts elsewhere that recommended changing to Advanced
Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC.
Very easy to change drivers through "Update Drivers" so I gave it a
go.
ACPI ran my computer a tad quicker (or so it seemed to me). Things
just felt a little snappier. The computer booted 5 seconds faster and
shut down 2 seconds faster-----and-----and here's the real
plus------it solved a couple of small stuttering problems in
3dMark2001 in the bump mapping and shaded pixel tests on my ATI Radeon
9700 Pro. The tests run smooth as glass now.
But here's what I can't figure out-----3dMark2001 scores were over 700
points lower than scores with the HAL set to ACPI Uniprocessor PC.
And it was clear in the tests that frame rates dropped compared to
ACPI Uniprocessor PC. Unreal2 seemed to play the same between the
two------but showed a drop in framerates when Advanced Configuration
and Power Interface (ACPI) PC was loaded.
Now, I don't really give a hoot about 3D Marks----as long as the game
plays good and the computer feels snappy-------but 700 points is
nothing to sneeze at.
What is going on here? Why does XP load Uniprocessor as the default
when the other setting seems to run better------but doesn't score as
high in a benchmark.
Anybody know an answer??
Win XP Home SP1
P4 2.53 @ 2.8
Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra
2 512 sticks Corsair PC3200 XMS CAS2 DDR
80 Gig Maxtor running at 133 on the Raid Bus
Enermax 431 "Whisper" PSU
Swiftech MCX 4000 Heat Sink
Michael Brown
The uniprocessor kernel is for SMP boards with only one CPU active, so has
all the locking, etc, that OS's need when running in SMP mode. "Advanced
Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" is for single-processor boards
with one CPU, so does not have a lot of the complexities of the
uniprocessor kernel. It probably also has a very different task
scheduler/switcher.
This could be why some glitches were fixed, and also why performance
changed a bit. There is probably a few bugs in the driver with regard to
locking (the lack of it), so with a different scheduler these bugs could
disappear. I can't really explain the drop in performance though ...
usually stuff speeds up when you rip out the locking, but it's possible
that there's something in the XP scheduler that gives it coarser-grained
switching or something, I dunno.
Basically use what works best for you :)
> Win XP Home SP1
> P4 2.53 @ 2.8
> Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra
> 2 512 sticks Corsair PC3200 XMS CAS2 DDR
> 80 Gig Maxtor running at 133 on the Raid Bus
> Enermax 431 "Whisper" PSU
> Swiftech MCX 4000 Heat Sink
PS: XP Pro's (don't know about home) disk performance is SHOCKING with
regard to system laggyness. When I was copying the XP setup files (zillions
of small files all in one directory) from my main HDD to a backup drive,
you could feel the system stuttering. Windows didn't get redrawn instantly,
the mouse pointer was pausing for a 10th of a second, that sort of thing. A
real shock coming from Linux where you can set it up to transfer a few gig
of small files and have it running in the background with little
performance hit as long as you don't do too much disk access. Maybe this is
the reason why HT showed such a boost on XP in THG's report (he did a lot
of disk-intensive stuff - extracting files while defragging or something
like that).
I just got a copy from uni (go the MSDNAA - free XP plus VS.NET :) ) and
have to use it for my assignments, but unless I can get it to work decently
I think it's going to be fairly unused ...
--
Michael Brown
www.emboss.co.nz : OOS/RSI software and more :)
Add michael@ to emboss.co.nz - My inbox is always open
JohnRR
Thanks Mike------I had an Aussie email me and say that his setup using Advanced
> > Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC was much FASTER than the Uniprocessor setting and he was getting totally the opposite readings in his benchmarks.
Oh well-----just goes to show you that a lot of this stuff is "magic".
Probably the difference is my MoBo and bios. Think I'll stick with Advanced
> > Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC for a while (heck, I can always do a "driver rollback if I want to switch back)-------I don't care about benchmarks-----I really care about "look and feel".
Thanks agagin-----John