From: Shawn M. Pierce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 1999 6:29 PM
Subject: RE: MD: "Hesitating" sound
>I must admit, after replying to the graphics card, I began to wonder why
>gcards came up...so I looked back. Not to start a flame war or
>anything...but...
> The current architecture for PCI busses is a throughput of around
>~800mb/ps. That has been that way for years, even with the first intel
>busses. The newer 66mhz pci slots have a throughput of 1.6gigs or
somthing.
>AGP is somewhere around 3.2 gigs per sec at 2.x mode. The only cards that
>are slowing down a system are ISA cards, and that where your problem may
>lay.
Throughput means absolutely sod-all I'm afraid. If I had a 32k input buffer
on a card, and I stuff 32k and 1 byte across the bus, that one byte will
lock the bus until the card takes it. THe card could be doing anything -
most likely waiting for the flyback of the monitor to output the next frame,
but that bry brief delay would be enough to throw out a device such as a
sound card. The program misses picking up the sound card interrupt for
another 64k of DMA and the result is the sound "skips" or "repeats". PCI
cards access the memory differently, but the principle is the same. If the
bus is locked, even for a nanosecond too long, the request for more data may
be missed. The throughput of your bus could be way in excess of speeds we
can even imagine but the situation would still be the same. The point is
that the graphics card IS what locks up system bus lines.
> The only thing limiting computers these days are CPU's. A 486 with
>32 megs can run Win98SE, I know, because I have one running it. A Matrox
>2mb card MORE than handles any 2d applications. As a matter of fact. The
>Nvidia GEForce256 is too FAST for all processors, even K7-700mhz, the CPU
is
>a BOTTLENECK!
In that case, can you tell me why it is a P3 600MHz system with 128Mb
RAM and the NVidia G-Force256 is currently experiencing stuttering sound.
Should I perhaps write to Intel and ask them for a faster CPU, or should I
maybe just update the graphisc drivers, which on a system this fast are
really the only logical explanation. Also, why can I play an MP3 off of my
ZIP drive (that thing that makes the machine grind to a virtual halt)
flawlessly on a P200 with only a Trident ISA graphics card and ab SB16. Are
you going to tell me that obviously this machine is far superior to the P3?
Just to give you an idea of the processing power involved, a 486DX33 can
play MP3s happily in DOS with the SB16. I think it's safe to say any modern
PC can probably manage that sort of background processing power without even
needing a severe setting up session.
Magic
--
"Creativity is more a birthright than an acquisition, and the power of sound
is wisdom and understanding applied to the power of vibration."
Location : Portsmouth, England, UK
Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk (under construction)
EMail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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